


el niño

by BlueMoonHound



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Temporary Character Death, Death in Childbirth, F/M, Fluff, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Kidfic, Memory Alteration, Minor Character Death, Original Character(s), Other, Unplanned Pregnancy, aka barrys teammates as a merc, angst with a reasonably happy ending, implied sex, unplanned but EXTREMELY WANTED children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-04-21 17:51:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 34,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14290155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMoonHound/pseuds/BlueMoonHound
Summary: El niño:-the boy.-a weather pattern which causes violent storms.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> General warning:  
> not everything that happens in this fic has yet been tagged.  
> The angst in this fic is VERY heavy. it covers some very dark themes. Don't let the first few (fairly fluffy) chapters deceive you.  
> I will update the tags and warn everyone before something particularly heavy or dark happens.  
> I also haven't decided if this has an epilogue or not. If it doesn't, it _won't_ have a happy ending. If the chapter count changes to 17 at any point then you know that there's a happy ending.

“Well I guess it's been a year, then,” Barry says, staring up at the sky. “No hunger.”

He can feel Lup nod, somewhere to his left. Taako plonks down next to him and slides till his head is on Barry's arm.

“Wild,” he says.

Davenport is pacing at the helm. The hunger hasn't come. _It hasn't come_. It's _late_.

“Does that mean we can like, have normal lives?”

Lup laughs. “Bar, I don't think our lives will ever be normal.”

He turns to look at her. She's as beautiful as ever, draped over the railing of the ship. Her ears are low, though. Something's bothering her.

“What do you mean?”

“We started a war, babe. We gotta do something. We can't just let a different hunger eat this world.”

He can hear Lucretia's pen and wonders if she's recording this conversation. He almost laughs at the thought. “Well, we can't do anything about that tonight,” he says. “At least the gal- the whole planar system isn't going to go up in smoke tonight. We can, we can take a break. We deserve it, yeah?” Barry gets up and walks to the edge of the ship, looking over the railing. He leans til he's got his head on Lup's shoulder.

“Yeah,” Lup sighs. “Your bell isn't razing cities to the ground, though.”

“That's true.”

They stand in silence for a few moments. It's cool out, tonight. A soft breeze blows through Barry's hair. The world looks bright and beautiful still. He counts the colors. He can feel a little better, a little more assured that the hunger is not coming, if he counts the colors. Works his way through the rainbow, finding something in every general range. Then he starts again, til the sun has fully set, and the colors are all woven with deep purples and blues.

“Want to help me take off my binder?” he asks Lup.

Lup laughs. “Sure, babe.” she kisses his cheek.

“I have some secret champagne down there too,” he adds in a hushed tone. “For after.”

Lup takes ahold of his jaw and turns his face so she can kiss his lips. “Alright, loverboy,” she grins. “Let's go.”

 

Months pass. It's easy and hard at the same time. For the first time, they're free- free, they hope, to live their own, their best lives. But for the first time, they caused the carnage slowly eating the world. For the first time, they aren't the ones fighting to protect it.

“No, lissen,” Taako says, stumbling a little despite the arm supporting him. “Liiiiiisten. We gotta do this more often. The booze here _rules_.”

“Taako, you kissed like, five people.” Lup tightens her arm around him in an effort to keep him more or less upright. “You remember why we have that rule, right?”

“Nah. Rules suck.”

Barry laughs. He's a little tipsy, too, but nowhere near as far gone as Taako is. “If he gets sick it's his fault,” he says.

“True, but I don't really wanna get sick,” Lup grumbles.

“Yeah,” he says, opening the door to the ship. “Me neither. But. We can't stop past Taako from kissing a buncha hot boys.”

“Let's just get him to bed,” Lup sighs, smiling.

 

He does get sick. A sick Taako is a rather pathetic Taako, too. He stopped trying to pull the I Am Not Sick move several decades ago, and now he begs for attention instead. Barry holds a crying Taako and pets his hair till he falls asleep. Lup makes him stew. Magnus carries him to bed when he falls asleep in odd places. Lucretia reads him stories. Merle mostly … scolds. And Davenport, as usual, just stays the hell out of the whole mess.

It's not terrible. He's not terribly sick. It's something small, a not-particularly-powerful strain of influenza or something. Or, Barry amends, some elven sickness.

“Lup.” He clicks on the light to their quarters with a flick of his fingers. “Lup, it's noon. Are you getting up today?”

“Mnghno.” She sounds gross and raspy.

“Babe, did you catch Taako's sick?”

“Nope.”

Barry crosses the room and touches her forehead. He knows what Lup's temperature ought to be, he's used to how she feels. “Yeah you did,” he says. “I'll get you a glass of water.”

“Mngh.”

Barry fetches a glass of water and puts it on the bedside, climbing in next to his wife and budging her head so she's settled in his lap. She's pale and sweaty and unhappy looking, and it makes his chest ache just a little. Poor Lup.

“Can you sit up and drink some water?”

“Mhm.”

Barry helps Lup take little sips of water, and then lets her fall asleep on his shoulder. Her breathing is comfortable, even if it's raspy. He settles against the bed.

 

The mundanity of everyday life is slowly sinking into Barry's skin. In the weeks since Lup fell ill, Barry may have missed a few of his daily-routine chores, like brushing his teeth. Or his hormones. Perhaps. Maybe.

He counts on his fingers, but he can't seem to recall forgetting a testosterone injection. Whatever. The past few weeks have been far too hectic as it is. Besides, hormones can do weird things sometimes.

Barry climbs back into bed. Lup hadn’t even realized he was gone til the bed dipped, and there he is again in all his glory. He makes an unhappy noise and squishes his face back into her back.

“What’s up?”

“Period.”

Lup rolls over in his arms. “I thought testosterone stopped that stuff?”

“I mean, not always.”

“Oh babe, that sucks.”

There’s a beat of quiet. Lup is full of curiosity, though, so it doesn’t last long.

“Are there other things that bleeding out your coochie can mean?”

“I mean, yeah, of course. But it’s usually menstruation. There’s a difference in pain.” Barry manages to sound scientific and groggy at the same time.

“A difference in pain, like the time Lucy’s appendix exploded?”

“I mean yes, we just didn’t test for-- Lup, we were stuck in a never ending cycle for a hundred years and with three humans on the ship only one of us got appendicitis once. I’d say that’s a feat. No one got an ovarian cyst, or an STD, or anything like that -- I’m sure elves deal with those - Listen, I’m tired. My head hurts and I’m going back to sleep. Science in the morning, okay babe?”

“Yeah, okay,” Lup says. She kisses his head. She’s still a bit groggy too or she probably wouldn’t have sprung a bunch of science body questions on him in the first place.

 

“Come on, Bar,” Lup's voice filters into Barry's dream. “wake up, it's like ten AM. You're never up this late. I wanted to make you breakfast.”

He groans and rolls over, waking up slowly. “Hi.” His head doesn't hurt as much as it did last night, thank the gods, but he's achey in other parts instead. Like his back. And his boobs. He's still tired, too. It feels suspiciously like PMS and he really, really doesn't appreciate that. _Thanks, shit ass body_.

“Come onnnn,” Lup whines. He can hear her bouncing.

“What's the hurry?” he asks, reaching for his glasses on the table. When he's finally fumbled them on, he realizes Lup's wearing that childlike expression of pure excitement. What exactly did she get up to? Is this a prank? The twins do pranks when they're bored. He has a bad feeling about this, but he sits up and groans, prepared to climb out of bed.

The expression Lup was wearing disappears. “Are you okay, babe?”

“Yeah, I think my testosterone levels are fucked up,” Barry stretches and grabs a sweater, throwing it on over the t-shirt he wore to bed. “My breasts hurt. I'll test my hormones after breakfast, or something.”

Barry can tell the twins were most definitely planning some sort of prank, because Lup gives Taako a _look_ on the way down the hall. Taako licks his lips and keeps going, but his ears lower a little, resigned. Barry puts his hands in his sweater pocket and offers an apologetic smile. As much as he's glad he's not going to be pranked, he's also glad the twins are back to pranking levels of happy and healthy.

“How's pancakes sound?” Lup asks, bustling about the kitchen. Barry sits down at the table.

“That sounds good, babe,” he says. He takes a deep breath and traces the pattern of the tablecloth with one hand.

The batter smells disgusting for some reason. He doesn't let it show on his face. He's sure it's just the same old pancake batter that Lup makes every time, and it always tastes good cooked. Well, it does taste okay, but he can't get the smell of the batter out of the back of his throat and he eats a lot slower than he normally would.

“You okay?” Lup slides into the chair next to him. “Did you catch our cold?”

“No, I don't know, I'm fine,” Barry says. “I just don't have much of an appetite this morning. The pancakes are good, though, thank you.”

“You're always welcome to Lu's best pancakes, Barry. You know that.”

“Yeah, I know that.” He gives her a quick kiss. “At least if I have caught your cold, you're immune now, so I can still kiss you.”  
“You're a fucking sap,” Lup laughs.

 

Barry runs his tests three times and doesn't turn up unusual testosterone levels anywhere. He gets the feeling he's missing something, but he's too tired to pay much attention to it, so he cleans up the lab and packs everything away, ready to head upstairs and maybe get something more to eat- no, he's feeling a little nauseous, he's going to sleep. He gets himself a glass of water on the way to the bedroom, though.

...Well, okay, maybe not sleep. He can't sleep. He climbs out of bed and finds a book, sitting down at his desk and taking notes. It's one of several new necromancy books he's found on this plane.

By the time Lup comes up, three hours later, Barry's found a second wind and is effortlessly reading his notes, one leg bouncing under the table. He looks up when she walks in, concentration instantly broken.

“How ya feelin, babe?” She leans over his desk, hands on his chair. He can feel her hair brush his ear.

“Oh-- better,” he says.

“Do you want a back massage?” Her hands slide off the chair and to his tense shoulders, rubbing circles into his muscles.

“Yes,” he sighs, leaning into the sensation.

“Well, get on the bed. I'll give you the full experience.”

“Mmmm.” Barry stands up and lies down, sliding a pillow under his torso so he doesn't have to lie on his aching breasts. Lup straddles his waist and works her fingers into his muscles again, this time lower than before.

“I love you,” Lup says, kneading into a particularly tense knot.

“Mhm. Love you too.”

“I don't think you caught Taakle's cold.”

“Mmmm.”

“Like, we woke up feeling sick one morning. My boobs certainly did not hurt while I was sick. And you seem to be _mostly_ fine. Mostly.”

“M'just worrying too much. It's probably just my period.”

“I really don't understand why humans don't have a more efficient reproductive cycle.”

“Me neither.” He moans when she hits a really sore spot. Oh man. Barry loves Lup, just, unconditionally loves her. She's gentle and wonderful and he's had a whole century to get to know her. He loves the feeling of her cool hands working the tension out of his neck. A finger running down his spine.

She works him so loose that he almost falls asleep. Eventually, she climbs off, and runs her fingers through his hair. Barry's aware that were he an elf, he would be purring right now. Instead, he just lies there, blissed out, and lets the world wash over him.

“Have you eaten?”

“Mngh?”

Lup laughs. “I bet that's a no. You still feeling sick?”

“No.”

“What do you want to eat?”

“Mmmmmsteak.”

“How about some of that leftover stew? That has some beef in it.”

“Sure.”

Lup slides off the bed. “I'll get you a bowl, Don't move.”

“You- you rubbed the move right out of my body, Lup.”

“You bet I did.” She chuckles.

Barry lies on the bed and breathes in the homey, chamomile and honey smell of the room till Lup comes back in, punctuating that smell with something even better-- the twin's signature beef stew. Barry sits up, putting the pillow back at the head of the bed, and makes grabby hands at the bowl.

“Wow, Barry, slow down.” She chuckles. “Wait, have you eaten nothing since this morning?”

“Yeah,” he says, taking the dish from her and immediately sticking a spoonful of potato chunks into his mouth.

She thwaps his shoulder. “Three. Meals. A. Day.”

“I was feeling sick!”

“You're not sick _now_.”

“No, and that's why I'm _eating_ now!” He's ravenous, and would very much like to just dump the entire bowl of stew down his throat rather than arguing about it.

Lup grumbles. “You should have at least tried to eat some crackers or something.”

“Yeah, probably,” he concedes. He should have eaten something after running four hours worth of failed testosterone tests. He hadn't really wanted to at the time, though. “I'm gonna go get more stew. I'll be back in like, twenty minutes?”

“Gimme my book before you go.”

Barry hands Lup the novel she was reading the other day before heading out the door. She gives him a big grin as he shuts it behind him.

Taako is stirring the pot in the kitchen. “Ohey, it's The Bluejeans man. Lup's been pampering you. You better not be sick. I'm not getting sick again. Ever. I hate being sick.”

“I don't think I'm sick.” Barry chuckles. “Just stressed. May I?” He reaches for the ladle.

“Yeah.”

He fills his bowl back up and sits down at the table to eat it.

“Hungry.”

“Forgot to eat lunch.”

Taako dishes himself a bowl of stew and sits down across from him, flipping through one of Lucretia's journals.

“She write any good porn?”

“This isn't one of those journals.”

“Oh.” Barry chuckles. “Which cycle is this?”

“This one.”

“What did she put in there?”

“Well she wrote about me getting sick.”

Barry fills his mouth with stew. They're silent for a little while.

He puts his bowl in the sink and goes back to his room. Lup has fallen asleep with her novel on her chest. He takes it out of her hand, puts her bookmark in the open page, and climbs over her, wrapping his arms around her torso. He wonders if quiet, calm days like these will become the norm for them. He shakes himself. They already have.

 

“Another city died,” Taako says, sounding hollow again. Barry opts to give him a hug, this time, before joining the crew on the deck. They hover over another ruin, this one the fault of the gaia sash, completely decimated by natural disasters.

“We should go down and help the survivors,” Lucretia says, hanging half over the railing.

Barry doesn't see any survivors. He does, however, see a dead child, a piece of rebar sticking up through their chest, eyes wild. A little blood trickles from their mouth.

He's seen worse, he's absolutely seen worse-- he's seen so many dead children in his life, but for some reason, this one makes him more sick than they have in the past. Maybe he really is catching something, he thinks, as he rushes downstairs to the bathroom. One of the twins follows him, though he can't tell whom at first, in his rush; it turns out to be Taako, who rubs his back as he throws up in the toilet, mumbling Taako-style inept platitudes.

“This sucks,” Barry says, hoarse, when he's sure he's done puking. He puts his cheek on the toilet seat. It's cool.

Taako nods. He's looking pale himself, his ears drooping to his shoulders. He doesn't sound much better, either. “Yeah, it really does.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be updating this _approximately_ weekly from now on.


	2. Chapter 2

“What are you eating?”

“Ham and carrots.” It's not that weird. He'd been hungry, he hadn't felt like asking the twins to make him something, so he'd grabbed the first things that looked tasty. Ham, and carrots.

“You know I could make you a sandwich? Absolutely free of charge?” Taako crosses his arms.

“Yeah.” Barry crunches a carrot and flips a page in his book.

“You're also sitting on the floor. Are you like, going insane or something? Very slowly losing it? Because you can just tell us, you know. Most of us already went.”

Barry shrugs. He chews his carrot pointedly. Taako licks his lips, then sits down next to him.

“What are you reading?”

“Oh? Yeah, this is a – actually a transmutation book, for once, I found it in a local library – a library in one of the dead cities, sorry, I know that's-- yeah. But, it's pretty interesting. There's some theory I hadn't found before. Not a lot, you've probably seen it all, but, it's cool.”

“Mhm,” Taako says, taking a slice of ham from Barry's container.

“Ham and carrots, huh?” Barry teases.

“Shut up, it's elf food.”

He laughs.

 

Blood is good.

It takes Barry about twenty minutes to take his bleeding finger out of his mouth and realize the words he just thought with his mind. He's exacerbated his papercut to the point where it might actually need a bandage, and he was _enjoying_ it.

He flops back on the couch. What the fuck.

The past month has been about as fucky as life gets. He's been feeling off the whole time-- not off enough to be really worried about it, but off anyway, and it sucks ass. He's gained a cup size, and he knows that means _something_ but he can't remember what. This all means _something_ but he doesn't want to go check because he knows he's not going to like it. It's not even that he feels like it's going to be something deadly or truly bad, just something that he doesn't like. Something viscerally upsetting and unnerving, especially for someone like him. He's not ready to know what's going on. At the same time, though, he doesn't want it to creep up behind him and become crystal clear on its own, the way Lucretia's appendicitis had, that one cycle. That could be _bad_.

A little bead of blood has developed on his cut. Curious, Barry licks it up. It tastes so goddamn delicious, he wants to just go back to sucking his finger and stop thinking about it. He knows, rationally, that this is a bad sign. What the fuck kinda thing can make a human have elven blood cravings?

He gets up and finds a bandage for his cut, then goes back to his notes. He's mapped out all the city destroying incidents on this planet so far, and now he's calculating the next most likely place of calamity, in the hopes they can preemptively stop some of the carnage. He's got a track on every visible relic – unfortunately the bulwark staff, the temporal chalice and the animus bell have all but disappeared.

An hour later, he finds that he has inadvertently given himself another papercut, and is once more sucking blood out of his finger.

What the ever fucking fuuuuck.

Barry sags back in his chair. Hell in a handbasket. Maybe he should just go to the fridge and see if they have any raw meat. This is stupid, and the worst possible way to get the nutrients in blood is to drink your own. He's not even entirely sure why he _wants_ blood right now. Nothing else sounds good. Not even logical substitutes for the majority of the things _in_ blood. He gives the new cut a last lick and goes back to his notes again, gripping the notebook tight.

Barry makes a frustrated noise when his finger makes it to his mouth a third time, putting his face down on his notes and making a very long, very ragged exasperated noise. “Fine,” he says, to no one in particular. “Fine.” He slams his notebook closed and stands up in a huff.

He puts the notebook on the table and walks into the kitchen, opening the fridge and following the scent of blood to the meat drawer. He finds a cup and breaks the seal on a container holding a bloody steak, pouring the liquid off into the cup. It smells fucking delicious and he hates that. He puts the steak back in the drawer and closes the fridge, his heart beating too fast in his chest. What if someone catches him drinking blood and asks questions?

Why is he so _worried_ about that?

He nurses his cup of blood. It's not quite as satisfying as warm, fresh blood had been, but it's much better than _no_ blood feels. Do Taako and Lup put up with this feeling all the fucking time? How do they even manage?

“Bluejeans man, are you drinking blood?”

Barry jumps about a mile. “What?”

“You know, if you wanted blood I coulda made you a black pudding. I know how to do that.”

“I--”

“Wait. Humans don't even need blood. _Why are you drinking blood?_ ”

“I don't know??” Barry squeaks. “I- It just – I was-- Uh--”

“Calm down, I don't care if you drink blood.” Taako chews his lip. “Well. I do care. But I don't care why, particularly. You've never shown any interest in drinking blood before. Is something going on? You fell asleep on the couch again yesterday, and you're being weird.”

“I don't know, I just-- It just sounded good, and it tastes good and here I am?”

Taako's eyes rove over the bandages on his fingers. He seems to be doing some kind of mental math. “That's not even an explanation but I'll take it. I'm gonna fetch lup, is that okay?”

“I don't need an intervention.” He sips his blood.

“Mhm, yeah, whatever you say.” Taako leaves.

Barry nurses his drink, trepidation growing by the second.

Taako comes back with Lup in tow. “Wow, you really are drinking blood, vamp boy,” Lup says, putting her chin on Barry's head. “What's up with that.”

“I don't know!” he shrugs. “I kept cutting my fingers and I figured this was safer.”

“You turning into an elf?”

“Taako it's-- that's not possible.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Barry holds up his cup, feeling a little sick. “Do you want the rest of this? I'm not, I don't want it anymore.”

Lup takes the mug and knocks back the rest of the blood in it. It's not a lot, the mug was never more than half full to start with. She puts it back down on the table and runs her fingers through his hair. “If you're still feeling weird in a couple of days I wantcha to go to Merle about this, yeah? You're making me worry, babe.”

“Mngh. Sure.” He's tired, again, all of a sudden. He leans into the caress.

 

Another city takes a hit. This time, from a quarter no one expected.

Taako stands in the middle of the carnage, stares vacantly at the peppermint houses. His ears dip past his shoulders so they're almost touching his back. He doesn't look like he's even seeing. He takes a step towards a body, a person standing on a porch, and touches their face. It's just as candy as everything else. They're just as dead as everyone else.

“Did we figure out who did this?” Taako says, his voice trembling.

“Some kid,” Lup replies. She doesn't look much happier than Taako. They're all devastated. Taako, though, Taako just watched his – his, until now, almost innocent relic – destroy an entire city. Well, they weren't there to see it happen, but how could they be? It took only minutes for the place to turn to candy. All because it landed in the hands of a _child_.

“We fucked this world up,” Lucretia says, trembling just as much as Taako, kneeling on the very edge of the gangplank. “We fucked up.” She reaches down for a moment, touches her fingers to the smooth glassy surface of the candy, and then takes it back with a jolt.

Barry just stares.

 

He talks to Merle the next day. He doesn't really want to, because honestly, he'd like to imagine nothing is wrong. There's enough going on lately. But he fell asleep an hour early again, slept till noon, and has felt sick since he managed to pull himself out of bed. Whatever this is, it's not agreeing with him.

He knocks on Merle's door and waits, anxious. He can hear Merle shuffling around for a few seconds before the door finally opens.

“What.” Merle blinks at him.

“Did I interrupt something important?”

“No.” Merle peers up at Barry. “What do ya need?”

“I think I'm sick? I think I've been sick.”

“Finally.” Merle grumbles. “Come in.”

Barry walks into Merle's decent-sized living space and lets him close the door. It's dark inside, lit by flickering candles.

“Why finally?”

“You've been wandering around like a zombie for the past month. I don't know as much about humans as I oughta, having to take care of you lot, but, I know you shouldn't be acting like a kinda sick half-elf for a whole month.”

“Half-elf?”

“Taako told me you were drinking blood. What's with that?”

“Just a craving, I guess.”

“Hm.” Merle shuffles some papers. “Well I poked around planetside last week, because I'm _generous_. And I learned a few things.”

“You were poking into my business.” Barry folds his arms.

“Whatever you wanna call it. Anyway, I think I have the answer to your question. You check your own hormone levels, right?”

“Yeah, about once a year, in the middle of cycles usually, but I _checked_ that, nothing was off, so I don't think it's that--”

“Okay, yeah, but did you check for hCG?”

“Human chorionic gonadotropin? Why would I check for that? That's a – Oh.” Barry scratches his cheek. “Okay, yeah, I really wasn't ready for this. Can I sit down?”

“Do what you want, kid.”

Barry pulls out Merle's desk chair and sits down with a thud. “Are you sure?”

“No of course I'm not sure, I haven't tested you or anything. Do you want to be sure?”

“Y-yes, I mean, this is– it's time sensitive.”

“True.”

Merle bustles around for a little longer. He waters some plants. Files some papers. Eats some pasta that's sitting on the desk. Barry shifts in the chair, feeling anxious and uncomfortable.

“Gonna have to touch your belly, you okay with that?”  
“Y-yeah, yeah.”

Merle puts a hand against Barry's abdomen and casts a spell. Seconds pass, agonizingly slow. Barry's heart pounds against his ribcage.

“Yep.”

“Yeah? I'm--”

“Pregnant? Yep, congratulations? You have a little while to decide if you wanna get rid of it, but not tons, as far as I can tell, so hurry up, kid.”

“I'm getting Lup,” Barry says, standing. He wobbles, dizzy, before managing to bolt out the door. “Thank you,” he manages to say before he runs down the hall.

Merle closes his door with a soft click.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have 9 chapters of this done, so I might up it to twice a week soon, if I can get some homework done...


	3. Chapter 3

Barry takes a shower.

He should have gone and found Lup and talked to her, but only a few moments after rushing out of Merle's room the whole situation came crashing down on him, and Barry headed to the bathroom instead. He spends ten agonizingly long minutes heaving over the toilet, then washes his mouth and takes off his clothes, climbing into the shower. He doesn't exactly wash himself, immediately, just leans against the shower wall and does some math.

It's been four weeks since he started showing symptoms, so he has to assume he's about two months along. He puts a hand to his belly. Of course, it's not noticeable, and he's not sure it will be till later in his second trimester. If he decides to keep the kid.

They're not _safe_ , now. They're certainly safer, but they're not safe. Does he want to bring a child into this world? How would he feel, having to explain to his kid that he was one of the people that brought this chaos down on the planet? Could he explain the hunger to a toddler, if asked? Barry licks his lips. That's years off, even if the kid was human. There's no way the kid is human, though.

_That explains the blood,_ Barry supposes.

He fetches his shampoo down from the top shelf, and then stops, puts it back, and grabs Lup's instead. His hands shake a little bit. Washing himself down is therapeutic enough to distract him for a few sweet minutes. Barry sniffles and soaps up an arm, feeling a little floaty and distant.

How is Lup going to take this? How are any of the crewmembers going to take this? For that matter, how is he taking this? It doesn't feel, well, okay. The chance of a trans man on a regular dose of testosterone getting pregnant – or, for that matter, carrying a child to term – is, as far as he's aware, less likely than it would be for someone in a different situation with the same reproductive organs.

For that matter, he'd been careless. Elf gestation takes longer, and so does the elven fertilization process. It's overall just harder for elven babies to exist. In a repeating, year-long cycle, with people that Barry knew intimately well, there was never any need for protection or birth control. And if anyone got a sexually transmitted infection, which, to his surprise looking back, no one did, they would just wait for the year to run out before worrying about it, if possible. It occurs to him now that some STDs don't present symptoms in everyone, or right away. It's possible they did catch some, at some point, but of course, those are washed away with broken universes.

He sits down on the shower floor, his hair falling in strands into his face. The water is still steamy. He turns the heat up anyway, like it was going cold. He puts a hand on his belly again, imagining that something about it has changed. There's a layer of chub protecting him from emotionally confusing possibilities.

For that matter, it had never been an issue on homeworld, either, for entirely different reasons. On homeworld, he had been guaranteed no further transition, and had assumed he would be living with this possibility his whole life. He never had penetrative sex on homeworld. He was smart about this. In the past hundred years, with all that shoved off the table, he'd just forgotten his old rules.

They'd talked about having kids before, he and Lup. Lup wants kids. Barry never minded the idea. He could see himself taking care of kids. Lup had always talked about it like she would carry them, though. After all, a sex change potion doesn't strip one of their fertility. For that matter, at this point, he'd probably gain some back – because, like he thought before, testosterone makes eggs less fertile.

This is such a strange conversation to be having with himself in the shower.

Barry stands up, wondering how long he's been in here. He steps out of the hot spray and turns the water off, wincing when he sees his ruddy, mottled skin in the mirror. Why did he turn the heat up, again? He dries himself off, redresses, and wanders out into the hall, still feeling twenty feet away.

He needs a hug, or something. He needs Lup. Even if he's not ready to give her the news, he needs to hold Lup in his arms. He shuffles in the direction of their bedroom, praying she's working from there.

 

She's not in their room. Barry panics, heart seizing in his chest and dragging him down for a few agonizing minutes. He gathers himself. She's somewhere else. He'll find her. It's fine. He grabs his robe, shivering a little, before he leaves the room, pulling it tight around his shoulders.

He checks the common room, and then goes to Taako's room, and there she is, reclining on Taako's bed while Taako works on something at his desk. She's blowing bubbles through a little wooden bubble stick. He stands in the open entryway, feeling unwelcome for a moment. The twins. He feels insignificant next to these elves.

“Hey babe,” Lup sticks out her tongue. She hasn't looked up, she just knew it was _him_. He relaxes a little. They might feel immortal to him, they might seem like they've lived forever before he was even conceived, but they still _know_ him. They've known him for a whole century. He's been alive for a century. A _Century_. He's only in his thirties and he's been alive for a century. A laugh bubbles up and out of Barry without his permission.

Lup looks up. He can feel her gaze drag over him – wet hair, a hand clutching his robe closed over his torso, leaning against the doorframe. Her ears droop, her expression sinking from calm and happy to worried. “You alright? You look kinda pale.” She goes to stand up.

It feels as if a mechanism that was keeping Barry's legs from moving unclicked in that instant, and then he's rushing across the room, burying his face in Lup's neck. He breathes in the scent of her shirt and her hair and then hiccups, teetering on the edge of tears.

Lup pulls him close against her, and then Barry feels her lift him up onto the bed, wrapped up in her form. He hiccups again, and this time it turns into a quiet sob, and the fog that's been chasing him since he left Merle's room breaks – shatters into a million pieces. He's shaking in Lup's arms, but she's there, it's Lup, she's warm and present and _this is what I needed_.

Barry cries silently for a few minutes, then lets himself relax in the warmth and quiet. Taako doesn't seem to have moved to disturb them. He made no comment at all at Barry's sudden appearance. It's not unusual; the twins are choreographed to each other. Barry trusts Taako with just as much of himself as he trusts with Lup.

Lup gives him twenty minutes to cry himself out. She pets his hair, waits until his breath stops hitching in his chest. One finger slides along the soft skin under his eye, smudging the tears there.

“What's up, Bar-bar?” Her voice is soft like a summer breeze. “What came up? You gonna die? You don't do this much.”

He shakes his head. “No, this is… bigger. Than death.” He realizes after he says it how strange that is. He's become so his life as a member of the ever-rebuilding IPRE crew, as a necromancer and a lich, that there most definitely are things more frightening than death, now. If he dies, right here, then the entire prospect of this change dies with it. It occurs to him, that he could use that as birth control, but he pushes the thought aside – Lup wouldn't appreciate having to live with his lich form for the rest of her life.

“Hey, you're okay, right? You don't needa cry anymore.” She rubs a hand down his back. “...Oh, you went and talked to Merle, didn't you?”

“Yes.”

Lup gets that this is something Barry doesn't really want to talk about. She rubs his back and doesn't ask anything for a few more minutes, letting the world settle.

In fact, it's not even Lup who actually asks Barry what's going on. He feels the bed shift behind him, and Taako is there, another set of long fingers on his shoulder. “So what is it, Bluejeans man?”

He can't think of a way to break the news without sounding cheesy, so he just comes out with it. “I'm pregnant.”

“Ooooohhhhh ok, that makes sense.” Barry feels Taako lean back and throw his legs onto the bed. “No wonder you were drinking blood.”

“Is that a thing?” Lup asks.

“'Course it's a thing, Lu, remember when that one guy – what was his name? His girlfriend was pregnant and she was human, she did the same thing. She tried to drink _my_ blood! Rude. At least jeansman hasn't tried that yet.”

“Oh yeah. I remember that.”

Taako starts petting Barry's hair. “Did you know babies in human carriers are _literal_ parasites? Like, the kid controls their fucking _hormones_.”

“Yeah I knew that, Ko. Remember when we were researching ovary bullshit and all the books were for humans at that one library?”

“Oh yeah. Doozy.”

Barry feels like he's become detached from the whole situation. Once more, he feels like he's stepped into something he doesn't belong in. The twins are closer than fingers are on a hand. They're taking the news much easier than he did – or, he reasons, maybe the gravity of it just hasn't settled in yet. The twins do the denial thing a lot more than he ever did, especially Taako. He stares at Lup's shirt collar and tries to pay attention to the conversation, but fails. He's starting to feel tired again, especially after the emotional roller coaster his afternoon has become.

His attention shrinks to the feeling of their touch. He can't stop himself from drifting.

“Barry?”

“I dunno,” He hears himself say. “I just, don't know how to feel about all this.”

Lup gives him a squeeze. “I don't care what you decide to do. It's up to you. It's a hard world, and a big choice, and I understand if you don't wanna do this, but, I'm also ready to raise a kid with you. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Barry says.

He recognizes the exhaustion he had felt earlier tugging at him more insistently. He's only been awake for a few hours, but it's been such a long few hours. He feels like he's been scooped out of his body with a spoon, leaving a ragged shell behind. He struggles to keep himself awake, gripping Lup's shirt.

“Hey, you can sleep, babe. It's okay.” She slides down to face level and nuzzles his cheek. “It's been a lot, right? You look tired.”

It has.

Without much more thought, he feels himself slide into the waves of unconsciousness.

 

It's not actually a hard decision. He and Lup had talked about this before, after all. Not in this context, of course, but they _had_. Like a pipe dream, having a family. Lup had suggested adoption, at one point, to accompany the idea that whatever plane they end up on might not have a sex change potion for them.

That's what Barry had expected to happen. Which is fine, that's fine.

He had woken up feeling much better. A little sore from sleeping in an odd position, squashed between the twins, but in a much better headspace, feeling much happier about everything. He's in the lab, doing science, because _science_ is a safe thing that he can go back to no matter what else is happening. He's safe in science. He can't imagine living without science.

He finishes another calculation – he's working on the stuff they'd been messing with on possible ways to defeat the hunger, because in his opinion, that has to still be their goal – and puts his pen down. No, this is fine. They'll be fine, like this. Might have to take a few years off before summoning the hunger to this plane, just so the kid can survive on their own if they have to leave again. That's a terrible thought. He doesn't want to have to leave his kid behind. It doesn't matter. The first, most important thing, is defeating the hunger. He's sure they'll understand. (Besides. The goal is to make this the last stop on the road. To defeat the hunger, and stay. He has an itching feeling that keeping the hunger out won't last forever, but they also haven't figured out what to do about it. So this is fine, this is good, for now.)

The optimistic side of his brain pipes up – maybe this is enough. Maybe they just have to wait, and the hunger will starve itself to death without the light.

Barry does a little more work, then stretches. He'll come back to this later. It's time for lunch.

 

Lup waits a few days before she springs the question.

“So, are you going to keep it?”

“Hm?”

Barry has his head in Lup’s lap while she pets his hair with long fingers. It’s a quiet evening. The couch is a little less comfortable than their bed, but he’d collapsed there earlier, exhausted, and hadn’t wanted to get up and move.

“The baby,” Lup elaborates.

“Oh, uh,” Barry pushes his glasses back onto his face. “Well, the way I see it, yeah, we weren’t exactly trying for a kid, but you wanted a kid, and, like, I don’t know if we’ll have - when we’ll get a chance like this again. So. Yeah?”

Lup laughs. “I was hoping to have a kid. You know. _I_ was hoping to carry a kid at some point.”

“Yeah, and I mean, I wasn’t, but, here we are, and I think this - I think I’m okay with this?” He shrugs. “I’m not dysphoric about it or anything.” Not right now, anyway. He's okay, right now.

Lup leans over and gives him a kiss. “Okay, babe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's my friend's birthday so yall get 2 chapters. :pp


	4. Chapter 4

“What are you doing?”

Barry leans on Taako's shoulder and looks on at his culinary book. He's taking pages out and filing them.

“Organizing by cycle, my man,” Taako says, pushing one hand through his hair. “Dunno why I had these organized any differently. Bullshit.”

He watches Taako's irises flicker beneath his eyelids as he studies his papers. The sun through the window makes them look more than just golden – they shimmer, sunlight yellow. His pale eyelashes cast no shadow on them. Barry's cheek is pressed against the fuzz of Taako's ear. He wonders if it's uncomfortable to have his ear pressed in that position. He doesn't ask.

Taako straightens his papers in his hand and slides them into the binder, leaning forward and putting it down on the coffee table. He leans back against the couch and stares into the middle distance for a minute.

“Shit, my dude, do you want me to make you something?”

“I, uh.” Barry is really hungry, but he hadn't been thinking about it till that moment.

“What do you wanna eat?” Taako Stands up and stretches.

“Uh.”

“How about something elven?” Taako wanders into the kitchen. “Yeah. I can make you, hm. One of auntie's dishes. Yeah.” He fishes down some cooking supplies.

Barry wanders into the kitchen, rubbing his back. He's starting to think he should ask Lup for another massage.

“Yanno, her name was Lup,” Taako says as he starts cutting up some vegetables. “Lulu took the name because we loved her.”

Barry knows this. Lup has told him before. He thinks he gets why Taako is bringing it up again. “Yeah.”

“You gonna give the kid a kid name?”  
“I don't know.” Humans don't change their names when they come of age. Besides, half-elves don't even live all that long, in comparison to elves.

“Hm.” Taako starts sauteeing something. “Tell me when you decide.”

 

Lucretia has been acting more agitated for the past few weeks. She'll sit down just to get up again, or pace around the living quarters with her hands in her hair, or hide away in her room for days on end and come out looking bedraggled. Barry stands in line for the bathroom one afternoon and hears someone puking inside. It's Lucretia who walks out. She gives him a wild look as she retreats.

Barry's chest feels tight.

 

Barry wanders into Lup's room a few days later. He knows Lucretia had been in here, which strikes him as a good thing – she's not getting so caught up in the relics anymore, maybe. He comes across a little pillow fort built up on the floor. One of his own old green blankets is pulled neatly over the top.

“Hello?”

“Come in,” Comes Lup's singsong voice from under the fabric. He bends down on the floor and pushes the door flap on the pillow fort out of the way, expecting the space to be far too cramped for him to enter. As it turns out, Lup has magicked a demiplane into the space. “Hey, babe,” Lup sticks out her tongue. Then she puts a finger to her lips and points to her lap.

Lucretia is curled up in the pillows, head resting on Lup's legs.

“She's asleep,” Barry whispers.

“Yeah, all thanks to me,” Lup winks at him. He thinks he knows what she's getting at and he's not going to question it, either.

“I'm glad,” Barry says, crawling into the fort and situating himself next to Lup on the pillows.

Lup runs her fingers through Lucretia's short curls. “She's been sick, I think.” Lup sticks out her tongue.

“Yeah, she threw up the other day.”

“How's the bun?” Lup asks.

“What?”

“Yanno.” Lup slaps Barry's belly. “The bun.”

“Hey!” Barry hisses. “D-do you think I can, I don't know, ask it or something? I don't know!” He hadn't even been thinking about the baby. Hell, in the past few weeks, with all the other bullshit going on, he'd practically forgotten about it. He'd been aware, of course, because his breasts hurt and his back aches and he's tired all the time, but that had become somewhat normal – like a bad cycle, something to wait out. He's a little rattled by the reminder.

Lup pecks him on the nose. “Calm down, babe.” She loops an arm over his shoulders.

He takes a deep breath. He promised himself that he would be okay. Then again, he still has time if he really needs to stop. He doesn't want to, though. Not really. This is _his_ choice. Well, it wasn't his choice to become pregnant. But – however terrified he's been – he hasn't been upset since he first found out. If he can't take care of the kid, at any point, they'll have six other caretakers. Hell, his situation is more of a blessing than a curse, all told. He doesn't know how many children are lucky enough to have five dads.

“What was she worrying herself about this time?” He asks Lup, watching Lucretia breathe.

“I don't know. She looked like a ghost, though. I dragged her in here and got her to sit down and stop worrying for a little while.”

“Ah.”

Barry yawns.

“You could join her,” Lup laughs.

“Yeah. I uh, I might.”

 

Barry almost walks in on a hushed conversation coming from the living room, and stops himself. It's Lucretia and Lup. He pauses in earshot. He could, probably should, just walk in on them.

“...Think that might be an issue, babe.”

“I know, but, I don't think that, um. Oh goodness.” He can tell by her inflection that Lucretia just put her face in her hands.

“Just go get it checked out, okay? Don't put it off. Putting it off is bad.”

Barry decides he's been listening in for too long and steps into the room. “What are you guys talking about?”

“Nothing,” Lup says.

“Uh,” Lucretia stares at him for a moment and then drops her gaze, fiddling with her fingers. “I'm showing symptoms of. Pregnancy.”

Silence cloys in the space between them like congealed blood as Barry processes that statement.

“That is a good thing to get checked out,” Barry says. He starts heading towards the kitchen. If he accidentally got himself knocked up, he doesn't see why Lucretia couldn't. Well, there's plenty of reasons why she wouldn't, but it was never off the table. She's less reckless than he is, but after a century where birth control was written into the fabric of their existence, slip-ups were reasonable. It's a little odd for this to happen all at once, though.

Lucretia comes running after him. “That's it? Just get checked? That's all?”

“Yeah. Do you want a kid?”

“No!” She takes a deep breath. “No, I really, really do not want to have a kid!”  
“Then it's better to know sooner, right?”

She stares at him, agape. Then she closes her mouth and nods. “You're right. I'm being stupid.”

Barry wanders back in the direction of his bedroom.

 

Lup's pacing.

They're supposed to be researching the hunger today. Davenport actually gave them an assignment, for once. But Lup's pacing, chewing her lip. A little blood trickles from where her sharp elven incisors split it.

“Lup?”

“You know,” she says, after a minute. She stops pacing, puts her hand on the lab table. He can see them shaking. “You know, another city died yesterday.”

“Do you want to go looking--”

“You're not going anywhere.” Lup looks angry for less than a second and then her head lands on her palms. “Babe, this is so dangerous. I don't want you going down there and getting hurt.”

“Lup. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

“Sure, yeah, but the baby isn't.”

Oh right.

Barry's been aware of that, he really has. But the fact that he has to shape his life around it now-

“Lup?” He hops down off the stool he'd been sitting on and wanders around so he can hug her. Her whole body is trembling, just a little.

“Yeah, babe?” her voice cracks.

“I love you.” It's not much, but it's all he has. He wants her to feel loved. 

“I love you too, Barold.”

He holds her till the tremors go away.

 

Over the next week, Barry finds Lup pouring over maps most of the day. She counts cities, plots and triangulates from what she already knows. She paces in their bedroom long after Barry goes to sleep. It's uncomfortable, impatient, and unhealthy, but Barry doesn't have the heart to stop her. She's just as justified as anyone else.

It makes his chest ache. He presses his face into the pillow and listens to her footfalls on the cold metal, the way her bare feet slap as she walks. Turns. Walks again. He wishes he could stop paying attention, because he feels so useless.

What is he supposed to say? What is he supposed to do? His relic isn't hurting anyone. Or at least, it's only ended up in a few necromantic circles, and they've transferred into other bodies but – the death count is still in the double digits, at highest. It's not even close to the number of people he'd killed in the past 90 years. Hell, it's not even equivalent to the number of times he died in the century.

He realizes, belatedly, that Lup is having trouble sleeping, and helps Taako push the twin beds from their two rooms together into a full, moving their stuff into the bigger space. He helps Taako make hot chocolate (Mostly just handing the ingredients over as requested) and then the two of them head down to the lab. Barry stands awkwardly in front of the door, glancing at Taako as he gathers the courage to knock. Taako could, he supposes, but then he'd have to give Barry the tray of hot chocolate.

Barry feels out of place, here. It's not even the twins this time. His relic has no notable death count. Taako's does, but Taako pretends it doesn't because he's Taako – and even that, even that isn't nearly as massive and frightening as Lup's. He feels like he might be overstepping a boundary. This is Lup's burden that she bears the way she wants to.

Except that's not true, he realizes. They chose this route together, and it's probably hitting Lup has hard as it's hitting Lucretia because Lup thought her relic would do less damage. She planned it to be a less insidious form of warfare, just plain offensive, rather than sneaky and roundabout like the stone or the oculus or the gaia sash. And, it turns out, it's just about the most horrible of the lot, tied with Merle's belt.

He knocks.

“Come in,” he hears Lup rasp from inside, sounding exhausted. He can hear Taako's ears flick to his side, shoulders falling in his periphery. He turns the doorknob.

Lup doesn't look up from her paperwork. She's got it sprawled out all over the largest lab table, a pen behind her ear and another in her mouth. She has her hair tied up in a bun, which looks a little silly with the undercut on one side – but Barry isn't going to comment on that. “We made hot chocolate,” Barry says, as soft as he can muster.

“Excuse you, _I_ made hot chocolate,” Taako says, putting the tray down on a clear-ish spot on the table as Barry closes the door.

Lup smiles but doesn't laugh. She doesn't look up, either. “Cool.”

“Babe, you haven't slept,” Barry says. “This – you can do this in the morning, right?”

“I need t' --” Lup stifles a yawn, catching the pen before it clatters out of her mouth and onto the desk. “Need to find the gauntlet.”

“But we can still find the gauntlet in the morning, Lup,” Barry says, pushing himself up onto the table so he can lean on her. “You'll be better at finding it if you sleep. Do – would you like help?”

“Finding the gauntlet?”

“Y-yeah.”

“I guess. But, I don't know, I don't, I'm.”

“Lulu?” Taako's voice is considerably smaller than the last time he talked, even though he's walked closer to the two of them. “Drink your hot chocolate and go the fuck to sleep. We made a double.”

Lup takes a sip of the proffered chocolate without even taking it out of Taako's hand and grimaces. “This isn't double.”

“Double bed, Jackass. We don't have infinite supplies of chocolate.”

“Says you. True polymorph.” She jiggles a boob.

“I only had to make your tits once,” Taako grumbles. “Stop making me stand here.”

“Hnope,” Lup says, taking another sip of hot chocolate. Barry stifles a chuckle into her shoulder.

Taako grimaces but continues to hold the hot chocolate in his hands for Lup. Barry slides off the table and gets one for himself, drinking half of it in one swallow.

“Babe, that's disgusting,” Lup says.

Barry grins.

They manage to shuffle back to the big bedroom, taking a small detour to deposit the now-empty cups of hot chocolate. Lup collapses on the bed and seems to fall asleep instantly, and Taako has to wrestle her corpse under the sheets.

Barry climbs under the covers, curling around Lup. He can feel her breathing. Something in his belly flutters as he pulls her back against his face.

He can always sleep with Lup in his arms.

 

Lucretia knocks on his door. She's standing in a bathrobe, illuminated by the hall light. It's a blue bathrobe that she made out of a bedsheet one cycle when they didn't have access to society.

“Hello?”

“Hello. I just wanted to keep you updated on the uh, pregnancy thing.”

“What do you mean?” Barry thinks for a moment that she means him. Then he remembers she's had her own pregnancy scare. “So are you...”

“It's a sympathetic pregnancy,” Lucretia says. “I'm not actually with child, but. Hypothetically. Can I come in?”

“Hypothetically yes you can come in,” Barry mumbles, stepping aside. Lucretia plops herself down on his bed. “What's a sympathetic pregnancy?”

“It's uh- when your body reacts to a psychological trigger, like someone you're very close to becoming pregnant, by deciding you are too,” Lucretia says. “And I was thinking, it will go away eventually, but if I'm still uh. Showing symptoms of pregnancy when the kid arrives I'm willing to help you take care of them. Then maybe you can sleep.”

“You mean, like, breastfeeding?”

“Yes, exactly.” She smiles. “And, I'm so glad I'm not actually pregnant. Imagine me, with a child. What a fiasco.”

Barry laughs.

It's a relief, really. He'd been thinking about that. He's heard so many stories about how babies need to be – just – cared for twenty four seven, about loss of sleep over their upbringing. The crew does not need their head science officer to be exhausted and busy twenty-four-seven. It's awfully kind of Lucretia to consider that.

 

The issue with helping Lup find the gauntlet ends up not being how nervous it made him, but rather that he keeps falling asleep on the couch. He wakes up -again- staring at the ceiling, his back aching terribly, and has to scold himself as he sits up. He's dizzy, a little nauseous and disoriented, but the part of this that miffs him the most is the fact that it's happened – wait-- five times now? He's no help anymore.

What he can do, though, is take care of his own body. He puts his book down and gets up, wandering into the kitchen, fetching water from the tap. He leans against the counter as he drinks it, still blinking the last of sleep from his eyes. The world is so odd after a nap. He never liked that sensation. He makes a belated attempt to crack his back, fetches some crackers, and wanders back into the living room. What was he looking for, again?

Oh yeah, reports for the gauntlet that may not have resulted in glazings. Any glimmer of hope.

He sighs, shoving a cracker in his mouth. This cycle really isn't going to get any better, is it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I forgot to post this at Midnight last night, so yall get it at eight in the morning. Why am I up? Well. ...you know.

Barry wakes up a few weeks later to discover that he can no longer fasten his jeans. He frowns at his reflection in the mirror. This has been creeping up on him for a little while now, and trying to keep them in place has just become too much work.

Barry sighs, kicking them off again, and grabs his bathrobe off his bed. He's going to have to ask to borrow Magnus's pants. Magnus is the only member of the crew with any clothes bigger than his. Barry hates borrowing Magnus's clothes because he has to roll the legs and sleeves way up every time. Cycles where Barry has to borrow Magnus's clothes are often really bad cycles, so the act doesn't come with great associations either.

Barry's about to knock on Magnus's door when he realizes he hasn't told Magnus what's going on. Barry pauses, considering whether he even wants to bother. In the end, though, he doesn't really have another choice. Barry knocks.

Magnus opens the door a moment later, looking like he just climbed out of bed. “Hello?”

“Hey, can I borrow your sweatpants?”

Magnus rubs an eye and frowns. “Why do you need my sweatpants.”

“Um, yeah. Okay.” Barry laughs. “There's uh, something I forgot to tell you. Which I probably should have mentioned like a month ago?” He takes a deep breath. “You know how I was sick? A while back?”

“Sick?” Magnus's frown deepens. “What does being sick have to do with needing pants?”

“Um.” Barry pushes his glasses up his nose. “I'm pregnant.”

Magnus blinks.

Barry can hear his heart in his eardrums.

“Is that what a bun in the oven means?”

Barry laughs out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. “Yeah, uh, yeah it is.”

“And the eighth crewmember jokes?”

“Y-Yeah.”

Magnus looks contemplative.

“And 'in the--”

“Oh, probably, Magnus can I borrow your sweatpants yet?”

“Oh yeah, um. Here.” He grabs a pair of sweatpants out of his drawer and throws them at Barry.

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

Barry leaves feeling dazed. He had expected Magnus to say something like ' _oh yeah, I knew already,_ ' or ' _someone else told me!_ '. _Life is weird,_ he considers as he rolls up the hems of Magnus's pants so he won't step on them. Then again, it's not the first time Magnus has been completely oblivious.

 

Taako is snoring.

That's fine, it's fine, but he's snoring against Barry's torso, his ear squished against his sweatshirt, and it's just a little uncomfortable. He doesn't want to wake him, though, because it's the kind of adorable that he doesn't get to see in Taako very often. Taako is rarely soft. He's all edges and expletives most of the time. But here, hair mussed, cheek pressed into Barry's belly, he looks a hundred years younger.

Barry tries to ignore the slightly unpleasant rumbling sensation and turns a page in his book. It does stop, after a few minutes, and Barry relaxes a little. Taako will sleep better if he's not snoring anyway. It takes him a minute to realize that Taako actually stopped snoring because he's starting to wake up.

“Yr hearts rly fast,” Taako mumbles.

“Hm?” Barry checks his pulse. It's fine. It's actually a little slow, probably because he's been laying on the couch for the past hour with a sleeping elf on top of him. “No it's not.”

Taako frowns and shifts. He blinks some sleep out of his eyes and then sits up.

“Barry how fast does a human baby heart beat?”

“Are you--” Barry glances at his bump. “You can hear it?”

“Yea but it sounds wrong,” Taako climbs off the couch. “I'm getting Lu.”

Barry watches Taako hurry out of the room and then leans back into the pillows. A human fetus's heart beats at 100 BPM at this point in maturity. He isn't worried. He picks up his book and lets one of his legs dangle off the couch.

He barely even glances up when Lup comes rushing into the room and slams her ear onto his belly. The elves are being dramatic today.

“Holy _shit_ ,” Lup whispers. “Koko, that's not one heartbeat, that's _two_ heartbeats.”

“What?” Barry and Taako say at the same time.

“Are twins normal for humans?” Lup looks absolutely flabbergasted, lifting her head off Barry's body. “Barold.”

“I mean, they're not _that_ normal,” Barry shrugs. “Like one in ninety humans is a twin or something.”

“What the fuck?” Taako throws his hands in the air. “What the _fuck_. Humans! Humans are _rank_.” He shoves Lup out of the way and flops down next to the couch like he wants to look like he's not aiming for another listen, then looks Barry right in the eye and puts his ear on Barry's belly. “Holy fuuuuUUuuuhking shit.”

Lup puts her head on Barry's chest. She kisses his chin. “We both get to pick a name now.”

“I uh. We have a while before we have to worry about that, right?”

“I have some name ideas.” She sticks her tongue out at him, then turns her face into his boobs. “I wish my flesh pillows were this big.”

“No you don't.”

“Yeahhhh I do.”

“They're _painful_ , Lup.”

“I don't caaaare.” She wiggles closer. “Also holy shit you're so warm. You're sooooooo warm. Hoooooly shit.” She slides under his body, dislodging Taako while she's at it. Barry squawks.

“Hey!” Taako shouts. “I had dibs!! I was here first.”

“He's myyyyyyyyy human!” Lup says, wrapping her arms under Barry's and trying to secure her spot. Barry writhes.

“Okay, nope,” he says, shoving Taako off him and extricating himself from Lup's grip. “I'll be in our room if you want to cuddle.” He picks up his book and leaves the room. He puts up with the twins's shenanigans far frequently enough as it is.

The twins do eventually wander into their bedroom, their metaphorical tails between their legs, and curl up on either side of him like cats basking in his warmth. Barry pets Lup's ear with one hand while he reads his book. The atmosphere is calm and quiet for a few sweet minutes. He turns a page, enjoying the peace.

“Barold.”

“Hmm?” Barry glances at Taako.

“Are you wearing Mango's sweatpants?”

“Yeah.”

“Why are you wearing Magnus's sweatpants? What happened to _bluejeans_?”

“Don't fit anymore,” Barry says, pointedly sticking his bookmark into his book and tossing it onto the side table. “Can't get any peace today, huh?”

“ _You're pregnant with twins and you're wearing Magno's sweatpants_ ,” Taako emphasizes.

Yeah. It's been a bit of a day.

“You've worn Magnus's sweatpants before.”

“Yeah but like. I'm not Barry Bluejeans. A Taako isn't even a thing and I certainly don't have a namesake.”

“That's quitter talk.”

“You're one to talk about quitting, _Barold Sweatpants_.”

“Why are you teasing me? I have children in my body! Is it even that surprising that my jeans don't fit anymore??”

Taako grumbles something into his waist.

“What was that?”

“Why didn't you get any pregnancy clothes?”

“Where the fuck am I, a muscular, unshaven man, supposed to get _maternity clothes_?”

“Uhhhh elves, obviously.”

“What?”

“Elves don't do gender like humans do.”

Lup makes a noise and shuffles closer to Barry in her sleep.

“Hmm.”

“Yea we gotta go get you some clothes at some point.” Taako yawns. “I'm sleeping.”

“Okay, Taako Taaco.”

“Shuddup.” Oooh, that was a good one. He's remembering that one. He grabs his book with a mage hand and starts reading again.

This time, the room stays quiet for a reasonable length of time.

Then Taako starts snoring again.

 

It's frankly terrifying. Barry's been over this. He's thought about this, but being able to see it, in the mirror, makes that feeling even worse. The swell is still barely visible, just cumbersome enough that he can't fit in his normal pants anymore, but that doesn't spare him from the truth of it. Before now, this had all felt like a dream. He'd gone over a hundred years without becoming pregnant, even with the sometimes rowdy sex he'd had in the century.

And originally they hadn't even been sure they were staying in this plane. Of course, upon landing, they all wanted to. This felt like home. This felt like what they were used to, and they were back to the reality they expected to exist a century ago. Finally, they were safe in the security of that which they found normal. Of course, for the IPRE crew, nothing would be normal ever again. But this? This was a little closer to normal than they had seen for a whole century. A little safer.

That is, until unsafe and unexpected things happen.

Barry really doesn't want to spend another hour of his life crying over his children, but he's so, so scared about what the future holds. They hadn't built the relics with the intent of staying in the plane they're in. They built the relics with the intent of buying themselves time. So, of course, they couldn't be sure that they were going to stay in this plane.

Even more than that, they'd started a war.

This wasn't a world to bring children into. Especially not for Barry fucking Bluejeans, the man who started a war with his stupid brainpan and its ideas.

Gods. He did this. At the root of the issue, this whole world's suffering is on him. And yeah, okay, he did it for a reason and it's not a bad reason, even if it's not a good one either. And yeah, he supposes, the world would have suffered a worse fate at the hands of the hunger. Maybe not if they got the light and left, but if they couldn't find the light all these people would have died anyway. But that doesn't change how he feels about it. Because frankly, he's terrible.

Barry puts a hand on his belly. He can feel where his skin has been stretched taut over his shifting organs. From a scientific mindset – the mindset he usually takes, in situations like this – it's really, really fascinating. The problem is, of course, that he can't think clearly about this. He's condemning another being because of this. Two. Two beings. Two little half-elf kids with Lup's hair and eyes and big toothy grins. He always imagines them looking like Lup, because Lup is beautiful and deserves to be copied.

Barry readjusts his boxers, uncomfortable with how they don't sit right on his body anymore, pulls on some of Magnus's sweatpants and wanders towards the lab. He needs to figure this out. What exactly needs to happen before the world is right again? Something. And he's Barry fucking Bluejeans, and he can figure out what it is.

 

Lup, Taako and Barry rise at three in the morning to move the ship closer to the nearest human friendly elven village. At the last minute, as they're leaving the ship, Lucretia comes rushing out of her room.

“I'm coming too,” she says, hitching a bag up her shoulder.

“Why do you need to come, Lucy?” Lup looks her up and down- she's wearing one of those old IPRE t-shirts, the ones Barry thought hadn't survived past cycle twenty-seven when they'd given a bunch away to locals as souvenirs. Lucretia is the best at hiding shit, though.

“Bras,” Lucretia says.

Lup opens her mouth to say something, makes a connection in her brain, and closes it again.

The little town they enter is just waking up as they walk through the streets. A few elven children gawk at them from an alleyway. Their eyes glow eerily in the dark.

Most of the elves here are wood elves, some with antlers. Barry still isn't used to wood elves. He has to keep himself from gawking at them.

 

Taako leers from over the neckline of a far-too frilly, far too pink dress he pulled off the clearance shelf. “Whaddaya think?”

Barry gives him an exasperated look. The past two hours have been mostly this. Mostly just these chucklefucks teasing him with frilly clothing they both know he would never wear. Lucretia had disappeared into the back corners of the store and wasn't even present to save him. They did find a couple of dresses that were actually reasonable, but Barry doesn't usually wear dresses. It's not his style. He's just not fucking interested in being a femboy.

Luckily, elven stores have a men's section in the maternity clothing section. Which isn't called a maternity clothing section, but fuck if Barry can pronounce the Elvish word for it. Lucretia seems to know the word perfectly. He reasons to himself that half the reason she was hired for this expedition is her ability to absorb languages like some sort of linguistic sponge.

He flips through another rack of jeans. They're all too stretchy for his tastes but that's better than not being able to wear jeans at all. He throws a couple of pairs in his size into his basket.

He's not used to shopping, either. They did plenty of shopping during the century but it was always a hurried affair. Many cycles, they would just make or repair their clothes from what they have. This feels too leisurely. Well, not too leisurely, but a lot more leisurely than he was expecting. They have all the time in the world to go poking around for clothes in this little elven store.

“Did you find anything interesting?” Lucretia asks. Out of the humans, Lucretia and Magnus are outliers in that they're both very tall, though Magnus definitely outpaces Lucretia by quite a bit. Either way, it makes Barry feel short around them.

“Not that would fit you.”

“I'm not looking for clothing.”

Barry stares pointedly at the bras in her basket. “I didn't know that bras weren't clothing.”

“Shut up, Barold.” She chuckles. “I'm not looking for overgarments.”

“Well I did find a denim dress,” Barry says. “It's been a few cycles since we found one of those.”

“Oh yeah. You have a talent for locating the denim.”

The elf behind the checkout is happy to see him back at the register. They coo over him and ask Lup and Taako questions in Elvish. He decides he really doesn't like shopping here. Lucretia looks a little self-satisfied-- she dumped all her clothes into his basket, since the crew uses the same money stash for everyone. The elf doesn't seem to notice her at all.

“Oh come on,” Lup says, running a hand along his back. “She wasn't that bad.”

Taako sticks out his tongue. “Lu. You remember being kids on the run, yeah? She was pretty fucking bad.”

Barry would just like to get home.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My friends kept asking me if i was secretly Barry bc we went thrift shopping and every time I went straight to the jeans. I am wearing jeans right now... Maybe... Maybe I am Barry.
> 
> ….Oh hey. I didn’t see you there. It’s your best friend, BARRY BLUEJANS. BACK at it again, recording live, from…… Paradise.


	6. Chapter 6

Nothing is perfect.

The IPRE crew is still dealing with the carnage unfolding beneath them. Lucretia writes them all down. She writes coordinates, a habit she picked up from Barry. Davenport has stopped taking them to look at the carnage. Someone asked him about it at dinner, and he had just shaken his head. Barry can't remember who asked. It doesn't matter. He caught Merle breaking rocks with growth spells one afternoon when they were landed, leaning against the hull of the ship. He didn't ask. They're all slowly, but surely, falling to pieces.

Barry's body has finally gotten used to the idea about having a couple of part-elf gremlins inside it. As a result, he's turned his effort and energy to work. When he can, he hauls his notebooks up to the living area and sets them out on the coffee table. Late one evening, Lucretia joins him, kneeling in front of the table across from him and opening one of her earlier journals. She has an enormous notebook on her lap. She chews her lip, turns pages, and every once in a while, jots something down.

“What are you doing?” Barry asks.

“Backing up some information.” She doesn't look up. She curls in tighter, shoulders hunching.

For a moment, he just continues writing. Lucretia does what she does. She's never been the easiest character for Barry to place. Even after a hundred years, Lucretia is still a bit of an enigma. At least, she's reverted to her enigmatic status since that cycle she spent alone. He stops himself from wondering what that would be like; he'll never be that alone. If nothing else, he will always have Lup. Hopefully, no one will die. Imagining what something would be like will do nothing to help the person who went through it.

However, it does occur to him that backing up some of the information in her journals is… an unusual thing to do. He realizes he's been rereading the same line of code over and over.

“Why?” he asks.

“I'm afraid,” Lucretia says, her voice calm even while her body is tense.

He wants to reassure her, to make things better. He knows that no matter what he says, it would be something of a lie. He can't be sure that they'll be okay. He can't be sure that what they have will protect them or that his work towards defeating the hunger will be enough to actually do anything. He can't be sure that his plan with the relics will last more than a few extra years. For all he knows, the hunger will just take longer to find them. Eventually, scouts will come.

One of the babies shifts.

“Me too,” Barry admits.

They sit in silence for a few long minutes.

A cabinet closes in the kitchen, and then Lup wanders in. “Do yall chucklefucks want some soooouuuuup?”

“Yeah,” Barry says, crossing out some bad math. He's been slipping up more lately. He wonders if it's stress.

Lucretia makes a noise of assent.

Lup comes back in with three bowls of soup balanced in her hands. She puts one down on the cover of a science journal Barry hasn't used yet. She ruffles his hair.

“You gonna sleep anytime soon?”

“What?” Barry finishes his thought in his notes and puts his pen down, reaching for his bowl. “What do you mean? I've been sleeping.”

“Not as much as you used to.”

“Are you kidding? I'm finally sleeping normal again.”

Lup pouts. “I liked it. It was cute.”

He sips some of the soup broth off the top of his bowl and moves to sit next to Lup on the couch. “I like being productive.”

“That's fair.” Lup yawns. “I haven't been sleeping much.”

“You were asleep when I woke up this morning.”

“Mhm.”

Elven sleep schedules are just enough off from human ones to create this kind of conflict, and Barry knows it. She must have woken up from her first nap early or fallen asleep again late.

Barry finishes his bowl of soup and picks up one of his books. “Well, I'm not tired,” he says, “So I'm going to keep working.”

Lucretia closes her notebook and starts packing up her things.

“You leaving?” Lup asks, groggy.

“Need quiet,” Lucretia says. She sounds tense, like a wound spring.

“Mm. Sorry.”

“You're-- it's – It'll be fine, right? It's fine.” Lucretia leaves the room.

“What's up with her?”

“Don't know,” Barry shrugs. He opens to the page he left off on and starts reading. Lup puts her bowl down on the table and cuddles up against Barry till her head is resting on his belly.

“You're warm.”

“You've mentioned.”

Lup clearly wants to fall asleep on him. He reaches over and grabs his stone of farspeech so he has it near him. He can feel Lup's breathing start to slow.

He turns the page in his book. It's really lovely. He loves being in a committed relationship. He loves running his fingers through Lup's hair, down the cowlicks in the shaven bit and then carding through the long part along the other side. Her ears are soft with pale peach fuzz.

She doesn't usually seek him out when she's having trouble sleeping. They keep melatonin in the lab, she could just take a couple pills and go back to bed. Something else is clearly going on. Maybe she's having nightmares. Barry hates to think that she might be having nightmares, but he's been having them too. The century is over. There's no reason why their brains should protect them from their fears anymore.

Barry lets out a huff of breath. It's been a long century for all of them.

He needs to fix this. He needs to stop the hunger. Help Merle stop thinking about the gaia sash. Maybe Davenport will stop being so quiet, if he can solve their problems. Lup will stop locking herself in the lab. Taako will eat candy again. Magnus won't spend nights on the deck, staring at the sky as if he's waiting for something bad to happen.

They're all waiting for something bad to happen.

They're waiting because they know something bad is going to happen. There's no question: This world they have infiltrated has suffered by their presence. Because of them, bad things happen every day.

But nobody's perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:  
> We're coming up real close to the angst at this point. The real heavy bad shit is still a few chapters away, but, just a word of warning, because the next chapter contains something from taz canon which is sad. So really, we've reached angst. Just not peak angst.
> 
> As a note on the subject of where this fic goes: It's not a comfortable topic to talk about. Researching for this fic has given me a new understanding of my own body and the blessings of modern medicine. I'm giving you such an advance warning because it's really a very touchy subject. Or, a very personal subject. It's not something that people discuss much, especially now that it's not common.  
> I promise no one important dies permanently in this fic. 
> 
> As usual, thank you for reading. I love you all. <3


	7. Chapter 7

The morning is warm and calm. Barry rolls over in bed, drinking it in for a few moments. He's wrapped in cozy blankets, his head buried in the softness of his pillows. He breathes in the smell of the fabric and enjoys the comfort of the space for a few moments.

He blinks more awake. Lup's not here. She must have gotten up already. Barry sighs, sits up, and stretches, leaning against the bedframe for a moment. The sunlight filters through the dust in the room, leaving beams. Barry pulls on some clothes and wanders out of his room.

It's earlier than he thought it was – can't be later than seven. He checks the living room. Lup's not there. There's a letter sitting on the table. He picks it up and sits down on the couch with a plop. She must have gone somewhere.

When he opens it up, though, all it says is ' _back soon_.'

Barry swallows. Okay. That could mean a lot of things. Lup has been restless for the past few days. She's going out. She's….

Oh gods. What if she's going looking for the gauntlet?

Barry's glad he's sitting down.

After a few moments, moments spent staring absently at the opposite wall, Barry drags himself to his feet. He refolds the note. Puts it back on the table.

It doesn't matter anyway.

He walks back down the hall. The world swirls around him. Too calm. Silent. It's seven in the morning. No one's awake. She really planned this. She knew what she was doing. He has no proof that she's gone. Why would she leave a note if she wasn't worried about them missing her? She's doing something stupid. Lup's the crew's triangulator. She knows how to hide her own tracks. He makes sure he's breathing. He locks their bedroom door behind him. He looks at he bed. No. No, he can't sleep there. It smells too much like Lup. He's overreacting. Barry drags himself into the bed and curls up around a pillow. This is fine, it's fine. He's going to be perfectly fine. Nothing happened. She'll be back when he wakes up. He knows he's wrong.

He sleeps.

 

He wakes up again to someone knocking light on the door. Barry sits up, wondering why he feels so gross. Did he oversleep? He checks the time. No, it's only ten. He recalls waking up at some point. He was awake. His glasses frames are pressing into his face.

Oh.

Lup.

Lup's gone.

Barry puts a hand against his abdomen. She'll be back, right? She has to be back. They're going to be parents. That's not, it's… not something someone should. She shouldn't leave him alone like this, right? He's so scared. He supposes, in the end, he does have the rest of the crew. He has Taako and Lucretia. And Davenport and Merle and Magnus. It doesn't feel like that without Lup, though. He became a lich with Lup. He's married her seven times. She's the facilitator of the warmth which has lulled him to sleep for the past fifty years. Fifty years!! It's been so long. He was ready to settle down with her. To just, exist, to be parents with someone and not think about the chaos around him. Not that thinking about the chaos around them was avoidable. They created this mess, it's their job to be the custodians of it.

“Barry?” A timid voice, from behind the door. Not Lup.

He can't make himself move.

“Barry, are you in there? I heard you move. Can I come in?”

He grunts. The voice seems to take that as an invitation, and Magnus opens the door. He looks all curled in on himself. Not the big, brave warrior that Barry knows Magnus to be. He's small. He's timid. (six three and so muscle bound he can lift a wagon.) His eyebrows are crushed together with worry.

“Do you know where Lup went?”

Barry shakes his head, still silent. One of his hands tightens in the bedsheets. No, he doesn't know where Lup went.

He realizes his other hand is still resting on his baby bump and he moves it to the bed. Magnus follows the movement, somehow managing to look more worried. Barry licks his lips and stops looking at Magnus's face.

“Do you want some coffee?”

“Hm.”

“Okay I'll – Taako's making waffles. I'll get you some of that too. Unless you want to come out and sit in the living room or something. Up to you.”

Barry takes a few moments to process this information, and the delicacy with which he's being treated. He blinks, slowly. Magnus leaves. He leaves the door open. Barry wonders if anyone has gone looking for Lup yet.

He slides off the bed. Some of the sheets follow him like lost ghosts.

Barry puts on a sweater and grabs his robe, sliding into the sleeves and pulling the folds of the bright red fabric around him. It's like a security blanket. He hasn't really been wearing it much, lately, but right now he can't think of any excuse not to. He wanders in the direction of the living room. He'll eat breakfast before he does anything rash. Breakfast is best before one does something rash.

He runs into Merle in the hall, who offers him a too-big smile. He wonders who Merle is trying to cheer up. Merle is very good at ignoring things. Not the way Taako is. He doesn't pretend things aren't there. Instead, he pretends they're fine. Barry doesn't think he could ever understand an impulse like that.

The little cluttered hallways of the starblaster feel bigger and emptier than usual.

Taako's in the kitchen, sure enough. He's wearing nothing but boxers and he's hunched over the stove like if he makes himself small enough he'll stop existing. Like Magnus. Magnus doesn't have big elf ears flopping down over his shoulders, one of them folded uncomfortably against his shoulder. It adds to the appearance. He wonders how elf ears are so flexible. Barry sits down at the kitchen table and rubs his socks together. Breakfast first. Finding Lup after.

“She'll be back, right?” Taako asks, his voice just a little too high pitched.

Barry doesn't answer.

“She has to come back. She doesn't just… Lu wouldn't leave cha'boy. It's.” He can almost hear what Taako's thinking. Lup has never just left them. Not like this. Well, a few times, but during the century there was the promise of _when I die, I'll come back_. And for him and Lup, even that hadn't been a problem. When they die, they just, float out of their bodies and continue along their way.

Barry can't go chasing after her, though. Not this time. He's almost absolutely sure the kids aren't going to be born liches, no matter what their parents are, so right now, if he dies, so do they. The thought wrenches at his chest and Barry puts his head down on the table with a small thud.

Lup is gone and he can't die.

Lup is gone and he can't die.

He's overreacting. Lup will be back. She has to be. She has to be back, because why would she leave her pregnant husband behind and go on a wild mission without backup? What the fuck is back soon? Not enough, that's for sure. Taako sets a plate of eggs by Barry's head and sits down across from him.

Magnus comes wandering in, still looking hollow. “Oh. You came out.”

“Hm.”

“Not, uh.” He chuckles. “Nevermind.” He was probably going to make a gay joke. Or a trans joke. Both? He's been out for over a century. It's such a ludicrous concept. He's been alive for over a century and he feels simultaneously too old and too young, all at the same time. Barry picks his head up from the table and cuts up the eggs Taako made for him, moving the pieces around on the plate. He does eat, a little, but it's hard. Taako doesn't seem to be doing much better. Taako eats a lot. He's soft and healthy even though he has a ridiculously high metabolism. And here Taako is, pushing his eggs around on his plate like eating will kill him.

(There was that one cycle where Taako didn't eat and it was literally the most horrible thing that Barry had ever lived through. Lup was dead, of course. Taako would eat if Lup wasn't dead. There's no situation where Lup is alive and Taako's problems become real serious health ones.)

At this thought, Barry forces himself to eat one of the eggs. It makes him nauseous. He puts down his fork and swallows half the mug of coffee in front of him in one swallow.

“That's mine,” Taako says.

Barry gives him a look.

“Nevermind.”

Barry pats Taako's head and gets up, refilling the coffee mug while he's at it and putting it back in front of Taako. He doesn't plan on drinking any more of that anyway.

“Do we have the records of where all the glassings happened?”

“What?” Taako asks.

“You know. Where all the glassings happened. Lup's notes.”

“I don't fuckin know, do I look like I spend time in the lab?”

Barry huffs.

“They might still be down there,” Magnus says. “Honestly if she took them we know for a fact that's where she's headed. But you might be able to ask Lucretia if she's recorded copies? If she starts actually paying attention. To. The world.”

Barry chews his lip. Paying attention to the world? What's up with Lucretia?

“She's in the common room,” Magnus adds, the meekness back in his voice.

Barry goes to the lab. He digs around. A few months ago he would have been perfectly capable of clambering up onto the lab tables and crawling around, but as it is, his once-over of the lab is painfully slow. The second time through, he finds the box that Lup usually keeps her notes in, shoved into the back of a cabinet that's practically impossible for Barry to reach. (Almost like she planned that.) It's empty.

Well.

He carries the box out of the lab with him, mind swimming. She could get herself hurt. She could die. Why didn't she talk to anyone about this? Someone might have gone with her. Lucretia certainly would have. He can tell that Lucretia is still upset that they chose to do this instead of her plan. Her plan wouldn't work, though. Barry knows it wouldn't. She's no scientist, though, at least, she doesn't have as many years of formal training as the rest of them. Well, neither does Magnus, but the rest of them are scientists. All the nonhumans on the crew have had enough time to major in several fields. Taako minored in scientific something? Applications of arcana, so no matter how much he pretends to just be the stupid chef he's still a scientist.

That all being said – thought – he's not sure that the choice that the rest of the crew made was the best choice. The bonds of the universe are safe from destruction, but at what cost?

Lucretia is sitting in the common room. She's sitting on the couch, with her knees folded up and her face pressed into the arm. She's shaking, just a little. He can just see her eyes, staring at nothing.

Barry wonders absently where Davenport and Merle are. He hasn't seen them yet today.

“Hey.”

Lucretia's eyes flicker but she doesn't move.

“Did you uh. Copy down the latest glassing?”

Lucretia moves long enough to point at a small journal on the table, then her arm goes limp again, falling against the couch. Barry frowns, but opens the journal up. It has notes on all the glassings, all the severe storms caused by the gaia sash, all the destruction caused by the stone and the occulus. Where the staff is, to the town. She seems to be paying a lot of attention to that one. It's the most benign, for the active five relics. A little bit on the chalice, though it's rather limited. And, to his surprise, a couple of notes on his own relic, mostly just what it is. Apparently, Lucretia went out investigating a few months ago and found a place where the bell was last sighted. There was a lot of death. Barry shivers. Fuck.

He remembers someone mentioning that, at some point. He hadn't paid enough attention. Sometimes, he just wants to pretend that the world is safe despite the evidence to the contrary.

He flips to the latest glassing and finds himself some scrap paper. He writes it down.

“Where's Dav?” he says, out loud.

Lucretia doesn't move.

“He's in the bridge,” Magnus shouts from the other room. “Knock first, I think.”

Barry heads toward the bridge. He knocks. It's quiet. No one answers. Well, whatever. He opens the door.

Davenport is sitting in his chair. Just sitting. His tail drags along the floor, limp.

“Captain?”

The silence stretches like a rubber band.

“She took her notes.”

The silence snaps.

“So she's looking for the relics, then.” Barry almost sighs in relief. Davenport sounds hollow, and sad, but he doesn't sound meek.

“What are we going to do?”

“Wait a week. Then start following the glassings until we find her.” Davenport gets down from his chair and pats Barry on the hip. “We'll be fine, kid. Lup will be alright. She's an adult and a lich.”

Sometimes Barry forgets that the twins are older than Davenport. Between species, aging always gets complicated. Gnomes come of age a full half-century earlier than elves do, even though their lifespans are hardly 300 years off from each other. To a human, though, 300 years is a ludicrously long time.

 

Barry forces some normalcy back into his schedule. He keeps working on his hunger calculations. He chews his inner lip and stares out the window. He can't sleep without Lup there, not til he's so exhausted that he passes out on the couch at three in the morning.

It's fine. He'll be okay.

She's not back in a week.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the angst!!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a doozy.  
> (End of chapter notes are warnings for chapter Nine.)

Barry's fighting sleep. Last time he slept, he dreamed about Lup turning into black glass. The last words on her lips were _back soon_. When is soon? Three weeks is not soon.

He's been linking up the glassings. Sightings. Anything he can get his hands on. He's been picking up spoof newspapers and reading them through. Today, though, he's just doing some more hunger math. He thinks that bonds might be the solution to killing the hunger. If he could figure out how to loosen the bonds in the hunger, like some bond-conditioner, maybe he could unravel it. The problem there, though, is that the planes within the hunger would all explode. They'd definitely all die. He needs to figure out how to stop the hunger without everyone dying.

Taako plops down onto the couch, slouching like he's gelatinous. His ear eventually lands on Barry's belly. One thing he's learned is that the twins sure as fuck like listening to the kid's heartbeats. His heart wrenches. Lup used to do this. She's not here anymore. _They haven't found her._ It's been almost a month.

“Hi.” Barry decides he's going to pet Taako's head anyway, even though the action reminds him of Lup. (Taako doesn't have an undercut, though.)

“Hey.”

They sit in silence for a little while. Barry puts his work down. It's not like he could focus very well anyway. He's been forgetful lately, and it sucks.

“I- I hope she isn't gone for a few more months but, if she is, at least I'll be able to just – just go after her then, right?” He'd thought about just going after her, anyway, in the past few weeks, but he's not as mobile as he used to be. He doesn't have the energy to get up and run all over faerun.

“What do you mean?”

“I can trust you guys to watch the kids if I chase Lup.”

“You're only like six months in, though.”

Barry shifts so he can look at Taako better. “Yeah? A human pregnancy is nine months long.”

“Barry. This isn't a human pregnancy.”

Barry laughs. “I'm pretty fucking human, Taako.”

“Yea but your babies are half-elf. If you have them at nine months, they'll probs live, but they'll absofuckinlutely be premature.”

Shit.

“Oh, wow, okay.” Barry sighs. “So- how long do I have to deal with this, then?”

“Elven pregnancies are a whole year. So probably like ten or eleven months? Iunno, Bluejeans, I'm not a baby scientist. Whatever those are called.”

“….Pediatrician? Biologist?” Barry doesn't actually know what a baby scientist is called either.

“Whatever.”

Barry goes back to petting Taako's hair.

“Hey Barry?” Taako mumbles.

“What?”

“Can I sleep here?”

Barry snorts. “Miss someone?”

“Nooooooo, you're warm.”

“Yeah.”

Taako took that as permission to sleep on Barry. He sighs and burrows into Barry's side.

 

A few days later, Barry finds himself knocking on Taako's door. He's exhausted, but he can't sleep. He can't sleep alone. He feels so hollow without Lup.

Taako hasn't been getting much sleep himself. He did take their first 'conversation' about it as permission to sleep on Barry whenever he was lounging in the common area, but that's never much longer than an hour or two.

As a crew, they're all starting to fall to pieces.

“Can I sleep here?”

“What, for like a whole human sleep night?”

“Yeah.”

“Yanno im gonna be climbing over you.”

“Yeah.”  
Taako blows some hair out of his face. “Ya know what, alright, fine. Get your ass in here.”

Barry steps the rest of the way into Taako's room and Barry closes the door behind him. He's so tired he's shivery, even here in the relative warmth – back before he and Lup consolidated to one room, he'd had the coldest room on the ship. He shuffles forward, tugging his IPRE robe tighter around him.

Taako crawls under the covers on the bed and curls into a ball. For a minute, Barry doesn't follow. He's feeling hollow, again. Taako and Lup are a unit. _Barry_ and Lup are a unit. Without her, they're both a little empty.

“Are you okay?” Barry already knows the answer. He knew the answer before he asked the question.  
Taako rolls over and looks at him for a few moments, eyes tired. “No.”

Barry shuffles over to the bed. “Move over.”

“Climb over me.”  
Barry grimaces. “That's very much not happening.”

“Ngh.” Taako rolls over.

“Thank you.” Barry hoists himself onto the bed and rolls on his side. He grabs Taako around the chest and pulls him against him. It's been a long time since he's been this buried in the smell of Taako's hair products, but even with his nose literally pressed against Taako's scalp, it's not quite there. Taako hasn't been showering. Shit.

He's too tired to deal with that right now, though. He's comfortable. He's not fucking moving.

 

Barry wakes up to Taako's body odor and immediately remembers that he was planning to force the elf to take a shower. It's amazing how little it takes, sometimes. He wrinkles his nose and rolls onto his back, then remembers something he read somewhere about that being bad for pregnant people to do, and sits up. He feels, well, not totally rested, but much, much more rested than he has felt since the evening after Lup left, which is a win.

He doesn't want to wake Taako up until he's ready to wake up, though, because however little Barry thinks he can sleep more, he understands the state of exhaustion Taako's living under. At least Barry's problem has been nightmares, mostly. He's sure Taako hasn't been sleeping much at all. Without Lup, they're both messes.

(And there's not even a promise of her return, this time. He can't even be sure she'll be back at the end of the cycle, because the cycles are over.)

Barry looks at Taako's end table to see if there's anything interesting to read. The answer is not really. He has a choice between a small stack of fashion magazines from an assortment of planes and several cookbooks. He's not sure why Taako keeps either of these things by his bed.

He settles for running through all the things that worry him again, running fingers through Taako's hair and over Taako's ears to steady himself as he does. He licks his lips and watches dust settle in the light beams from the window. The sun rises, slowly.

Taako groans against his thigh.

“You awake.”

“Mmnnooo.”

“You should shower.”

“Noooooo.”  
“I'll shower with you.”

“Hokay.” Taako seems to drift off again, but after a few minutes he pushes his head up and flips his body over til hes sitting upright. He runs a hand through his hair to get it out of his face and sticks his tongue out at the morning sunlight. “Fuck. I didn't wake up at _all_.”

“You must've been real tired.”

“Still am. What time is it?”

“Time for you to wash your hair.”  
“Shut up.”

“I had to smell that. All night.”

Taako grumbles. “You're turning into such a dad.”

Barry sighs and slides himself off the bed. “I'll be in the bathroom.” It's an unspoken rule that no one on the ship gives a shit about seeing another crewmember naked. It's been over a century. He doesn't even bother grabbing a change of clothes, just heads straight for the nearest bathroom. He peels off his clothes and hangs his robe up at the door, turning the water on hot.

A few minutes later, Taako shuffles in, some boxers and a bottle of conditioner in hand. He follows suit, undressing. He tests the water before climbing under it and promptly sitting down on the floor of the tub.

Barry climbs in after him and leans over him so he can wash his hair out in the stream of water. Taako makes a face when he's pelted with diluted shampoo.

Taako stands back up after about thirty seconds of this, looking agitated, and reaches for the soap. He scrubs at his skin with a vengeance. Barry's just glad he convinced him to actually practice a little self care.

“How are ya, then?” Taako asks. It feels like a rhetorical question.

“Fine.”

“How are the kids?”

“Oh shit,” Barry rolls his eyes. “I haven't _asked_. You know. Be- ecause that's an option.” He puts his hand on his belly anyway, trying to sense that everything is fine in that department. He's lost Lup, but if nothing else, he can keep fostering what little family he has left.

“Have you decided on names?”

Barry does a double take. Names? Names for the kids? He thinks about this for a long minute. “Well. Um. I could- could name one of them Angus, maybe. I don't know. Is it disingenuous to name one of them Lup?”

Taako laughs. “I mean, she's named after her aunt, maybe it's a family tradition now.” There's an echo there, because the twins's aunt was dead before Lup took her name. Not Taako's intent, he's sure, but he can feel his own fear reverberating in his chest.

He forces himself to stop thinking about that for five minutes so he can finish washing his body. He's so, so tired. Tired and heavy. Everything he loves and cares about feels so fragile now. He puts the soap back in the shower rack and sits down on the floor, not sure if he's going to be able to get up again. Not sure if he cares. He ignores the way the tub faucet digs painfully into his back for the sake of being able to thud his head against the wall. Taako flicks his hair into Barry's face, probably attempting to inact revenge. Barry doesn't have the energy to care. Besides, it's clean now, they're both clean. The amount of soap he has to wash off his body in twenty minutes has become arbitrary to him.

He's so tired. He'd like to fall back asleep, right here. His limbs feel like they are full of static, his mind weighted down by his own thoughts. At some point, far off, Taako kneels down on front of him.

“Barry? You okay?”

Barry doesn't respond. Taako takes his hands, rubbing his thumbs along his knuckles. He waits a few minutes, and then a hand is reaching up, wiping under one of his eyes. Taako wraps his arms around Barry's back and pulls him away from his uncomfortable lean on the faucet, until his face is pressed against Taako's shoulder. From this angle, he can more definitely see Taako's flat chest and comparatively flat torso, the only curves there formed by the layer of fat that is just a part of Taako's build. He's… He's jealous. He doesn't want to be. He doesn't want to be jealous, so painfully, so powerfully that he's hiccuping against Taako's collarbone all of a sudden, unable to stop himself from sobbing outright. Still shrouded by the spray of water coming from the shower head, Taako rubs his open palm down Barry's back, not trying to console him.

Barry's glad. He doesn't think consolation would help. It would feel fake.

“They're going to be people, Taako,” He sniffs. “I have people growing in me.”

“They're not people yet,” Taako says, unhelpful as ever.

Barry finds the strength to lift his hands from the floor and return Taako's impromptu hug. “They're going to be, though.”

“Yeah.”

Barry's scared. He doesn't feel like he has to say it. He knows Taako knows how he feels. He's lost Lup, but he hasn't lost his whole family.

Not yet. The optimistic side of him argues, _not ever_.

 

However much he hasn't lost his family, though, he's still missing too many pieces. It manifests in an aching in his chest. It's just that much harder for Barry to keep himself in check, and he has to pay that much more attention to his lich energy. It helps to believe she's alive, or at least okay. With her radio silence, though, it's hard to believe.

So he works.

Barry tries to keep track of how long has passed, when he last slept and showered, but he ends up taking more naps sitting up, with his head on the lab bench, than he had originally planned. He finishes putting together a map of all the glassings and pins it to a wall. He adds the other relic sightings too, with pins, just for good measure.

The thing is, triangulating is Lup's thing. Not Barry's. It takes him several tries to get something like what he wants to get out of his math, even with at least twenty years of practice under his belt. He never really paid enough attention to triangulation. He knows Taako has the practice he needs, but he doesn't want to go get Taako. He's awfully tired. He's not even sure he could get down off his lab stool and keep standing, right now. Barry leans heavily on his hand and tries not to think too hard about that sensation. He's so tired he feels drunk. Maybe just a few minutes.

No, no, he needs to be working. He needs to figure out how to stop the hunger, or find the latest glassing because another one is always happening, right? Where will be the last one? Soon, hopefully. He licks his lips. He feels hollow, spent and buzzing at the same time. He feels like if he stops working, he'll fall to pieces and there will be nothing left to salvage. Barry Bits, the new lich cereal. He probably needs to socialize, to remind himself of the bonds that tie him that don't have to do with Lup. It'd be a good idea to go find Taako and take a break. But he needs to find Lup, he needs Lup, _Taako_ needs Lup, fuck, hell, shit.

“Barry.”

“What.” His voice comes out of his mouth slurred.

“You got all on my ass when I wasn't taking care of myself and now look at you,” Taako mumbles, grabbing Barry around the breast and pulling him out of his stool. He lands rather hard on the floor, thankfully feet first, and catches himself on the lab table. No, this is not ideal, he's supposed to be working. That's his job.

“Nope, you're gonna sleep.”

“Taako. I need to find--”

“Babe.” Taako pulls a little lick of hair out of Barry's face. “You've got buns in the oven.”

“But--”

“Nope.” Taako slings Barry's arm over his shoulder and starts walking the two of them out of the lab. They walk down the hall in a blur of light and then Barry's lying on Taako's bed again, except the sheets have been changed and his pillow is at the head of it instead of Taako's.

Lying down is _wonderful_.

He feels Taako climb over him and curl into his side and – This? This. It's good. Barry sighs and the world falls out from under him.

 

The lab starts to feel claustrophobic, so Barry moves his equipment up to the deck, thankful for bigby's hand and other convenient lifting spells which, in his situation, he won't get to use for anything more useful in the first place. It's nicer up here, anyway. More air to breathe.

He's started to feel the storm brewing – not the hunger, thank gods above, but something perhaps worse, something that the seven people who managed to defeat the hunger could bring upon themselves. It's there in Taako's manic fake smile and Merle's broken rocks and the way he can't play chess anymore without getting that look on his face. They've all been on this ship for far too long but they're also afraid to leave it, because this storm is unfamiliar to them and what if they can't escape? If they ground themselves, if they decide they are safe, then they strand themselves in that silly belief in freedom.

(It's there in the way the only time you've seen Lucretia in the past two months is when she comes up, wild eyed, for food. You wonder what she's doing, but you know enough not to ask. She's been unhappy for a long time, now.)

The six of them had been countless places looking for Lup, at this point, but she's just. Gone. She's just gone. She's gone, and every time the group goes planetside to look for her, Barry has to stay behind. It's not worth the risk.

He feels useless.

At some point. Taako joins him on the deck. He has his hair down, today, fluttering in the wind. Barry turns back to his work for a few minutes.

“How’s it goin’?”

Barry starts. Shit. He was nodding off. Fuck, fuck. “Oh sorry, I- sorry, so, um, anyway, there’s a… there's a dungeon out beyond the Felicity Wilds? It's a… subterranean… demonic keep… thing. There’s a bunch of arcane energy coming off of it. I was gonna look into that… um.” It's really frustrating that he can't go places on his own anymore. Incredibly frustrating.

“Yeah, where were- where were- remind me, how far is that in relation to the last glassing?”

“Um, I’ve triangulated it here.” He points to it on the map.

“Yeah, it seems like a good a place as any.” Taako stops for a second. He takes a deep breath like he's going to say something more but Barry interrupts his thought.

“Taako, what if she’s just gone?”

“…who?”

Barry licks his lips. Who? Who who? What? He chews his lip. What? What??? “Ta- Taako? Taako, I’m...” He wants to reach over and touch Taako's face, a little, but – What the fuck?

“What if who’s gone?”

“What are we…?” The sky is _blue_. That- that doesn't add up. Fuck. Fuck, he was looking for his wife- He can't just forget-- “Oh, god, Lup… Taako, I’m- I can’t remember her face, Taako.” What is he doing? What is all this stuff on the table supposed to be about? A single violet pin glimmers in the afternoon sunlight. “Taako, where-”

“Whose face?”

Barry realizes what this feels like. “Is this Fisher?”

Taako takes a step back, looking confused. He raises a hand to his face, eyebrows knitting together.

Barry almost opens his mouth to tell Taako to kill him, because – Lup, who's-- he can't, but- the children, they- he's – He can't die, he can't, and Taako's looking at him now like he's babbling, which he probably is. Who- who is Taako? His back hits – Something-- Fuck-- what---

He feels a sharp stab of pain in his abdomen, and then nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for chapter 9 (Aka the next chapter, not this one): depictions of childbirth, not-very-graphic depictions of death in childbirth. Memory loss, obviously, because..... Lucretia


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNINGS!!!  
> heavy angst, _minor character death_ , canon temporary character death, memory alteration, death in childbirth

Lucretia does some crisis management. Mostly just getting her unconscious crewmates to their beds, for now, so that she can deal with how exactly she's going to deal with this later. She discovers that it's much harder to carry a dwarf while weak and tired. She has to drag Magnus, but luckily he's first. She's not sure what she's going to do when she finds Barry.

She's even less sure when she reaches the deck and his water has broke, because that's, from what Taako told her, very premature, even for a half-elf baby, but, she should have known – twins tend to be premature – She puts the thought aside. Taako first. She can deal with Taako's prone form first. She can worry about - _that_ – later. Not much later. It has to be soon. But she – she _can't_ –

Taako's face is gaunt. He looks so much like his sister. Lucretia tries to hold back a sob, but in retrospect, it's fine, it's fine, because she's alone now. No one knows who she is anymore. She's completely, utterly alone. She drags his body down to his room and leans over his bed for a moment, shaking.

Lucretia stands up, feeling foggy, and heads back towards the deck. Now it's time to deal with her biggest mistake. Maybe she can make this, well, not all terrible. She doesn't know how to deliver a baby. Especially not without – while the carrier is literally unconscious. Or, if she manages to wake him up, living in a delirious fog. She has no idea how much of an impact this will have had on Barry. How much did she accidentally erase? Can he – He can't even remember that he's pregnant, probably. She didn't think this through as well as she should have.

Lucretia takes a deep breath. She has, a little while, right? To deal with this. She can't remember.

She's trembling. She knows one thing for sure: She's not going to be able to carry Barry down the stairs. Lucretia gives him a light slap on the cheek. “Barry? Barold.”

It takes her a full half hour to wake Barry up. He's clearly delirious when he does open his eyes. He looks a little like he has a concussion, which she hopes to all that is holy is just a result of the Voidfish's effects and not an actual physical problem.

“Barry. Can you stand? We need to – Get off the bridge, anyway. You're. Um.”

“Who?” Barry lifts an arm, feebly, then lowers it again, trying to push himself up. It doesn't work very well. Lucretia slides one of her own arms under his shoulders and helps him sit up. He stares at her with wide eyes for a few minutes, trying to figure out who she is.

“I'm a friend,” she says. “It's okay that you don't remember me. You don't have to. Call me Lucy.”

“Okay,” Barry says.

She manages to get him on his feet in the next try. “Come on, let's get you downstairs and then we can rest for a little while.”

“Mhm.”

It's not as hard as she was concerned it would be, to get Barry down the stairs and to his own bed. She hopes he'll forget her nickname, though. She doesn't need that drama in her life. It just came out. She pulls up a chair and sits down. She needs to stay awake. She could rest her eyes. Just for a bit. She.

 

Lucretia wakes up only an hour later to someone screaming. She sits up, panicking, her heart thudding in her throat and making it hard to breathe.

Barry's, sitting up in bed, wild eyed and confused. His breath is erratic, his hand resting on his low belly. Lucretia doesn't know what she's supposed to do. She's not a midwife. She's _tired_. Today has been the longest day of her whole long life and she knows it's going to keep stretching. She wracks her brain to remember what she's read in the countless books she checked out at various libraries-- but – there wasn't much on half-elf births anyway, especially not of twins, though it's more common for half-elves to be twins if the carrier is human. In the end, she just pushes Barry back onto the bed and tells him to breathe. He clutches her hand tight, so tight that she's forcibly reminded that he's actually a fighter, not just a wizard, not just a scientist but a fighter, making her fingers feel like they might snap under the pressure. She's sure it's not as bad as what he's feeling. When the contraction ends, Lucretia takes his shoes off- she should have done that before – and, feeling invasive, his pants, too, because he can't give birth to a child with his pants on, right? Her heart is still beating in her throat. Children. Two of them. Twins. Of course, the man dating Lup Taaco would end up pregnant with _twins_.

Lucretia takes a deep breath as another contraction hits, counting as best she can in her head. She doesn't think she could successfully produce a functional timer spell so they're going to have to wing this one. She breathes in and tells Barry not to push, yet. She has no idea what she's doing. She needs to get these kids out alive. That's the only goal. Just alive. She just needs to keep them alive for the next, year, or however long it takes her to recover the relics. It should be fine. It should be easy. She has all the notes she needs to do it.

She realizes a few moments later that she's not going to know how much time has passed if she doesn't have a watch of some kind, and she gets up to get one. Barry moans unhappily as she leaves, reaching out. Her heart jumps into her throat. How can she be this terrible? What on faerun made her this terrible? She just wiped the minds of her whole family. Her best friend is going into labor, and because she's so incredibly stupid, he probably won't be able to remember that it even happened. If she's lucky, he won't. He doesn't need that kind of trauma on his hands.

She fetches a watch and returns to Barry's room with as much speed as she possesses. The contractions are already fairly regular, the longest pause so far was a little ten-minute respite in which she listened to Barry's labored breathing and prayed. The seconds tick by on the the watch and Lucretia bets she would be falling asleep again if her blood wasn't ringing wild in her ears.

Lucretia feels so inadequate. All she knows about this is from books. And she can't get a midwife in here, how would she explain? How would she explain the starblaster? What about the fact that Barry can hardly string together two words, at a good moment? Or even, two premature elf children, because honestly, she's pretty sure the ship is docked in Gnomish land right now, and even walking into the village on her own would be odd here. It was just the site of the nearest glassing. Well, not the very nearest, because they were headed somewhere else, next, she thought. Barry said he was looking into a lead, yesterday. She could have waited. Maybe they'd have Lup back now. Maybe not. It's been months since she left. She wants to sleep. She needs to be awake for Barry.

She considers, for a moment, the irony of a half-elf baby being very premature even when a human baby would be overdue. She wonders if, because Barry is human, this was inevitable. She wonders if, on worlds where that's a viable possibility, elves induce labor when carrying half-elf children, because they might carry too long. Then again, elven childbearing is safer than human childbearing in general. Elves are less likely to die in childbirth or miscarry, but also less likely to become pregnant in the first place. What a beautiful irony. It's no wonder humans have such short lifespans, from that perspective.

She checks his dilation, because however inadequate learning from books makes her, Lucretia still knows a few things about childbirth as a result.

Lucretia takes a deep breath. “Hey Barry, can you understand me?”

“Ngh?”

“Next time it hurts, can you push?”

“Y-yeah,” Barry rasps.

Lucretia pushes sweaty hair out of Barry's face and rubs a thumb over Barry's knuckles. The minutes stretch by interminably, but the first baby crowns without too much drama, and soon Lucretia is looking around the room for a pair of scissors so she can cut the cord. She's not sure if she should cut the cord till the placenta is out but she's going to do it anyway. Their lungs seem mature, because they cry. Lucretia sighs in relief and cradles the tiny half-elf against her chest, sitting back down next to Barry on the bed.

The baby is going to need to be fed-- she glances at Barry and realizes that there's an added advantage to her sympathetic pregnancy. She pushes up her shirt and offers the baby a breast. They latch on instantly and -  
“Ow,” Lucretia has to stop herself from startling as something stabs her nipple. She'd forgotten that elven children are born with a blood tooth. She's not sure how she's going to handle that situation, since she's got no elven blood herself and won't produce enough to keep up with the demand, but with Barry's help, maybe…

She is very thankful for the numbing agent that comes with the blood drinking thing, because her breasts are _sore_.

She waits for the baby to be done nursing and then tugs her shirt down over her breasts again. It's going to be salvageable anyway, so she doesn't worry about the blood.

For a moment, she allows herself to relax, and it's a moment too long, because she falls asleep leaning her head against the bedsheets and a newborn in her arms.

 

She startles awake sometime later. The baby is screaming. Screaming and messy. She takes her shirt off entirely – it's not like anyone around is going to care – and makes an attempt to fasten it into some kind of baby carrier. It's not perfect. She offers them some milk again and sits up straighter to see how Barry's doing, which… turns out to be not good. He's pale and glassy-eyed, his face covered in dry tearstains. The second baby still hasn't crowned.

Lucretia walked into this so completely unprepared. She needs towels and probably food and water for Barry and she needs this to just work out alright because dammit, she's done enough harm here.

She wonders how long she's been asleep and when she checks the watch on her desk, she realizes it's been fourteen hours.

_Fourteen hours._

Barry's been in labor for… a very long time. She takes a deep breath, chews her lip, and stands up, heading towards the kitchen. It doesn't matter. She doesn't know what's wrong, Barry's too delirious to tell her what's wrong, and they need to get through this. She gathers towels and blankets and gets some water and puts rice on the stove. She leaves the baby in the room, because there's no way she's going to be able to go about this without both hands free. Plus, she needs a bra. She has a brown sports bra in her drawer which zips down the front, which is perfect.

It's hard to get Barry to sit up and drink a little water. She manages to get him to drink a little with a straw, but he's just not doing very well. She eats some rice herself, and it tastes like the most wonderful thing on the planet. When was the last time she ate? It doesn't matter. When was the last time Barry ate? A while ago, too long ago probably, but he looks like he's having trouble keeping down the menial amount of water she gave him so she's going to have to wait a while.

Things don't get better.

Lucretia almost falls asleep again. She feeds the baby when they cry. Barry, to her disbelief, does manage to fall asleep.

At least, that's what it looks like, until his lich form sits up on its own and turns to her, skeletal face betraying no emotion. Energy arcs off his form for a few long minutes, but then he grasps at the sheets – as best as an incorporeal man can do – and sighs.

“What the fuck, Lucretia,” Barry says. He floats off the bed and stares at his sweat slicked body. “What the hell.”

He takes his body and hoists it into a demiplane, closing the gates behind it. Then he rounds on Lucretia again, as if he's going to yell at her. His hands shake and his form quivers, but after a few minutes he just rubs his face and sighs again.

“I can't do this,” He mutters.

And then he's gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my heart, it's a roof in El niño  
> Oh my heart, it's a roof made of straw in the jaw of El niño
> 
> And I pour my heart a new foundation  
> But it don't set hard, it just stays shaking  
> And I scratch my name, I scratch my name in  
> But it don't set hard, it gets mixed back in


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: non-graphic autopsy. Everything else is stuff u've already seen.

Barry finds somewhere to sit down.

Well, not sit down, since he's a lich, but, to rest, to not be floating, agitated, over the world. He finds a little stream in a forest and curls his form up against an old yellow birch. He lets himself flicker for a little bit, because he can tell this energy isn't going to just disperse, it hurts to hold it inside of himself. Once he feels a little less pent up, Barry thinks through the past few days.

Lucretia erased their – memories? She _erased_ them. She erased the century. He can guess why, but he doesn't want to consider it. He doesn't trust her with his memories. He spent a century trusting her with his knowledge, but now? Now he's not sure he can trust her with anything.

That's a lie. Lucretia never did wrong by someone on purpose. He trusts her with the things he knows she can do. He trusts her with his child. It's better than leaving them with a stranger, after all. At least Lucretia knows the story. The image of her flashes before his mind again – shirtless, disheveled, exhausted, and bloody, staring at him with tears streaking down her face. It's clear she didn't mean for him to die. Why would she? How could he expect to survive childbirth with complications anyway, even if he was conscious? He knows very little about that stuff. None of the crew knows much about that stuff. Even if they were all there, and all alive and safe, chances are he still would have died.

Barry puts his head in his hands.

He'd wanted to be there for his children.

He'd wanted to raise his children.

Instead, here he is, sitting under the twisted branches of an old yellow birch, staring through his phalanges at a bubbling creek, absolutely dead. The thought makes his energy flicker again and he forces himself to calm. He shudders with something like a sob and curls in on himself.

Gods. _Gods_. He's lost his wife, his children, and he's alone in a wood, incapable of crying because he's _dead_.

Dead.

He pulls the body out of the demiplane, fishing around until he finds his knife, too. He conjures a mage hand and – as carefully as he can – cuts his corpse open. He hacks a little when he's sure he's not going to hit the baby, because after all, he's dead, it doesn't matter of he rips his body to shreds.

They were breech, which – ow. She couldn't have prevented that, at least. He pulls the baby out with mage hands. Tiny. So very still.

He'd hoped that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't be too late to save them.

Barry laughs. He's sitting on a forest floor over his dead body, holding his dead baby in his dead hands. It's the last place he ever predicted himself being. A long, short century ago he would have questioned every part of that sentence. A whole century ago. He's lived so long, and his baby didn't even get a chance to be born.

 _At least one of them lived_ , the scientific side of his mind reminds. _That's a fifty percent success rate._

It's feeble bullshit.

Barry wanders for a little while, aimless. He finds a cave. He tucks himself back into it and curls up again, somehow assured that he won't be found, or, at very least, that it doesn't matter if he is. He sinks a little into the wall and drifts.

 

He left the kid.

Lucretia sits still for a minute, clutching the sleeping baby to her chest. Was it trust? Forgetfulness? Distraction? She wagers more on the second two, because she doesn't see why she would trust herself if she were in Barry's position. She just killed him. She didn't even have to touch him and he's dead now. She has no proof that he was ever alive, here, nothing but one half of a premature set, asleep in her arms and so, so small.

Lucretia is exhausted.

She's a little thankful that the baby is so small, after she gets up, because it means she can support their whole body and their head on just one arm as she goes looking for the baby books she checked out at the library. She washes blood and sweat off her unoccupied hand before touching the books, of course, but she still feels like she's going to dirty them.

She makes a piece of long cloth into a baby carrier, which she ties around her breast. Then she takes the sheets off Barry's bed to put in the wash, washes his whole room. Maybe she can get back in contact with him so he can get his stuff. Maybe he'll just take it himself. If she comes back and his things have slowly been disappearing from his room, she won't argue. Liches can float through walls.

Lucretia cleans the baby again, then. She takes a shower. Sits in the water perhaps a little too long before she gets up, reattaches the baby carrier, and goes looking for something to eat. She's dizzy, and she knows it's from blood loss. She's going to have to get used to that. Elf babies need blood. This whole situation would be so much better if Barry was alive, but she brought that on herself.

She makes herself eat. It takes more effort than she had been expecting to get the food into her body. Guilt weighs too heavy for her to keep herself alive on a whim. She does, though, because being alive herself means keeping Barry's child alive. Unlike Barry himself, the baby is not a lich, and will not come back no matter how they die.

She falls asleep again, head on the table.

 

Lucretia spends the year it takes to wean the baby off her milk looking for a better home for them. She learns firsthand how hard it is to take care of a half-elf baby as a human. They need a lot of blood, more than she had initially expected, and she spends most of the year either dizzy or buying large amounts of animal blood (much to the chagrin of several butchers in Neverwinter) or both. She dropped Magnus, Merle and Taako off in places she thought they would be safe, but Davenport was just as lost to his own history as Barry had been, so she keeps him by her side.

In the end, the baby goes to the Mcdonald family. They're well off and kind, and they're friends with a family of scientists who can help her continue her mission if she ends up needing help. She's still hoping to do that by herself. She had tried and succeeded at finding a relic with the baby in tow, but it had almost not been a successful trip, and that was _her_ relic, which was both tame and _hers_. If that was hard, she can't imagine how hard it would be to fetch the other relics with Barry's child tied to her front.

She found another relic, but the problem was always the baby. (She found Barry's relic. She got a _letter_ about it.) With the baby in safe hands, though, she can begin her work.

She tells the Mcdonalds she should be back in a year or two. They shouldn't have to bring the child up in earnest.

“Does she have a name?” Mr. Mcdonald asks her at the door.

“Their father wanted to name them Angus,” She says. “I'm not your keeper, or theirs.”

The baby babbles at Mr. Mcdonald and he brushes a little lock of brown hair behind their ear. “How old is she?”

“I don't know,” Lucretia croaks. She knows the day. She knows the hour. “I don't know.”

With that, she leaves.

 

The first thing Barry does is gathers himself and goes looking for Lup. He spent a whole week wallowing, because when one doesn't get hungry or tired it's hard to tell how much time has passed. He tracks the gauntlet to its last known sighting and finds a place to hole up near there, near a little dying mining town named Phandalin. Over time, he gathers himself together. He practices making himself look human and then gets his bluejeans cleaned. Buys himself a new shirt. Leaves his old body itself in the demiplane, because he really doesn't want to think about that. He's not sure what he plans on doing with it, but he didn't want it to get destroyed. It's the first time in a hundred years that he can keep one of his own bodies and the morbid, necrotic part of him that feeds his existence was too excited to have a dead body to consider what that might mean for him later.

Later, he's thankful for it- thankful, eternally, because he finds a body-making machine at an auction and he has to buy it. He spends the next few days wasting true polymorph turning trash into money so he can pay the auctioneer but it's so, so worth it.

Barry runs his hands down the glass case. It's a very specific kind of necromantic technology which basically carbon-copies a body. There are some downsides to this – his new body is probably going to have to recover from childbirth, because it's a _carbon copy_ , but he doubts the machine will copy the dead fetus, since he took it out. He shudders. The machine is designed to be survivable, though. It's designed so that you can fall off a cliff and basically splatter and still recreate yourself almost exactly as you were.

It's a miracle. It's beautiful.

He's going to forget everything as soon as he's alive again.

He'll have to work around that.

He could, write a note? Maybe? He could write a note. He'll write a note. Before he can do that, he's going to have to eviscerate his dead body and put some of it in the machine.

He's extremely, extremely glad that he can't puke as a lich. With part of his arm safely stored inside the body making machine, Barry disposes of the rest of his body. He buries it.

Honestly speaking the most annoying part of his lich form is the way it reacts to his human compulsions. Dry heaving, as a lich, is painful.

He's relieved that he can go out and look for Lup, though. He recreates his map as best he can. He keeps a notebook. He goes searching in libraries. He has a month before his new body will be ready, and then he can start asking people. He's getting closer by the moment. He's also relieved that Lucretia's choices did end the relic war. Erasing the century was perhaps not the best of her decisions but erasing the relics was very, very smart. It's not as if he has forgotten permanently.

His chest pangs when he realizes that the others will have forgotten permanently. It's just him and Lucretia. He's even happier that he left the baby with her, when he realizes that.

Meanwhile, he feels like Lup is on the other side of a plane of glass, and all he has to do is shatter it, but he doesn't have a hammer.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HURG  
> seven more chapters to go! (Probably. I hope. That would make things easier.)  
> So far i have 27000 words of this thing written and I still have so much to write. A few months ago I would have been gobsmacked at the idea of writing something this long.   
> Thanks for sticking with me through the angst! I finally figured out how to write an ending that isn't a depressing one, so you all have that to look forward to. ;w;


	11. Chapter 11

Barry opens his eyes to green.

It's not like, a view of a pretty lush field or anything, either. It's literally, green goo. Barry shifts forward, befuddled; why is he in green goo? He steps forward and collapses immediately to the ground. He blinks. He's in a room, no, in a cave? He looks behind him. There stands a tall capsule filled with green goo.

Huh.

And, and, he can't connect the dots on what that all means. His head hurts when he tries. His body hurts too, actually. His body aches, bone-deep. He opts not to get up from the floor. The headache dissipates when he stops trying to think about what's going on, thank gods. Now he's just lying, naked and in pain, on the floor of a cave, which isn't really much better. He can't see very far. Where are his glasses? He supposes that being completely naked lends itself to not having his glasses.

Barry sits up when he feels like he can. That hurts too-- he feels like he took a twelve inch dick after running a marathon. In fact, as he looks himself over, he realizes that he does have a slightly distended belly. A twelve inch dick would not do that. He runs a finger over a long stretch mark. He can't make the connections on why he would look and feel like this, either. Not wanting to develop another headache, he pushes his concerns to the side of his mind and drags himself to his feet.

There's a desk in here, and on that desk he finds his glasses. Good. He puts them on and looks around the room in earnest. He's not dripping with green goo, which is good. There's a chest in the corner. A letter on the table. A letter, that seems like a good place to start. Barry picks it up.

 

_Hello Barry. I hope you can remember your name. I don't know what ~~she erased.~~_

_Bear with me here. I'm you. Your clothes are in the trunk. You've been through some shit and I don't know how badly it will effect you, but if you feel sick or tired, rest. Once you feel better put some blood back in the tube. The one you came out of. There's food and water on the table in the other cave. And a bedroll._

_After you're rested I think the next best step is to start poking around in the area. You're looking for something to do with fire. The closer you get, the more information you get – even if it's statickey and weird – the better. It'll help you to do that. Getting a job as a mercenary or something might help too, just so you can keep eating and shit. You know._

_Thanks._

 

Barry isn't sure he trusts this mysterious stranger. They seem to know a lot more about his situation than he does, though. He wonders if he's been kidnapped. A kidnapper wouldn't have told him to get a job. Will he ever meet this guy? He doesn't know, but he realizes all of a sudden that he is, in fact, very tired and very hungry.

He fishes a T shirt and a pair of boxers out of the trunk. He doesn't think he'll fit in the jeans right now, so he leaves them folded where they lie. It seems to all be his clothes, which is good. He wanders into the adjacent cave and sure enough, some bread and butter is out on the table, a glass of water, and evenly sliced cheddar cheese. Road food, but food nonetheless. He spreads the butter on the bread, throws the cheese on top of that, and devours it without hesitation.

Kidnapper probably wouldn't feed him this well, either. He drinks his water. Exhaustion continues to drip down his body. What had he been doing? What landed him in this situation? He tries to think of the last thing he remembers, but that's a memory from his childhood, and he's definitely not a child. Barry frowns. Not great.

He wiggles his way under the sheets of the bedroll, which is astonishingly plush and comfortable, and he drops off into a slumber.

 

Barry wakes up clinging to the far edges of a nostalgic dream, leaving his chest gaping with emptiness. He wants to reach out and touch the dream again. There was a person – he can't remember who. He wants to hold them. He wants. He wants. His head hurts, and he wants it to stop hurting. The dream fizzles all the way out.

It takes a few minutes for Barry to remember the context of his surroundings, but when he does he sighs, because in the end it doesn't explain much. He wanders around til he finds where the food is stored and helps himself to some bread and cheese. He's still feeling tired, very tired and achy all over. It can't be that early in the morning. He checks the little clock on the wall and finds that he's been asleep for about twenty hours.

Well then.

Barry nibbles some more cheese. He must be recovering from something bad. He wonders why someone might deposit him in a place like this, with a reasonably comfortable place to sleep and enough food – albeit rudimentary food, some carrots and some cheese and bread and soup broth, preserved in a bin with a cooling spell, but nonetheless in a cave underground somewhere – and whether, once again, he should trust them. He's certainly not bad off down here. He can't help wondering if the person who put him down here caused him to feel this pain. He doesn't love it. What if they just need him whole and well so they can make him feel pain again? He doesn't love that thought, either. He has to put the bread down on that thought.

He feels gross and useless and stretched out thin, right now. At least he's safe enough, here, though. Barry pushes himself to his feet and digs around in the desk for answers. He finds a map that tells him exactly where he is, which is a place called wave echo cave outside of a town called Phandalin. That's infinitely more information than he had before.

That aching sensation, a feeling like loneliness and longing sprinkled with static, rises back in his chest. There is so little that is familiar about this place and it feels like the things that tied him here are gone. Barry steps back to the wall and slides down, wrapping his arms around his chest where it aches. It's so empty. He needs. He needs someone, but every time he tries to place who, he catches only a glimmer of an idea before he's sliding on glass again, hitting some barrier in his brain. It's like half his life doesn't exist. He wonders what that means. Who was he? Did he have family? What were they like? Who was the mysterious person who snatched him away?

Do they miss him?

It's too dark in here, but he can't have sunlight in a cave. He's not ready to leave. He realizes, all of a sudden, that he could leave any time, but he can't, because he's still hurting and it's too much and he'd get nowhere if he tried. He slumps down onto the ground, curls into a ball, tugs his knees as close to himself as he can. He feels lopsided in his own form.

There's not much else he can do, he tells the mirror as he rakes his fingernails down his neck in anger. He looks like no one he remembers. He does manage to draw blood, once, on his arms, and another time he manages to pull out a lock of his hair. He stares at that, in his hand, and giggles hysterically. Hair is dead. He's not sure why that's funny to him. Hair is dead, and it used to be part of him. It used to be attached to his scalp and now it's in his hand but it was dead the whole time.

He's not sure if he loves or hates dead things.

In the end, maybe it's a little of both.

No, no, he hates dead things. He hates dead things so much that he finds himself vomiting in the sink at the thought. Things aren't supposed to be dead. Gods, gods, someone's dead. If only his brain would let him process what happened. Is this trauma? Is it good that he doesn't remember? Barry doesn't have the energy to care, anymore. He rakes his fingers through his hair again, tugging less forcefully. His palm comes away bloody anyway, a relic of the places where he scratched deep into his skin. Bullshit. Bullshit.

He'll eat a carrot. He'll go to sleep. He'll wake up the next morning. Maybe he should start exercising. He's a fucking fighter after all. Fighters are supposed to be fit, not lazy and depressed and gross and pulling out their own hair in the bathroom mirror because they can't remember their past. Or maybe that's normal. Don't mercenaries lose fingers all the time?

Barry feels like a pidgeon missing all its toes.

Barry goes back to bed.

 

The next morning, he wakes up in the worst pain imaginable. He doesn't even try to get up, just rolls over, whimpering, and deals with it while black spots swim in his vision.

It hurts a lot. He spends several days in bed, dealing with extreme pain in his abdomen. He can't move. His breasts ache, too, but it's all washed together in one heap of pain and static, making it impossible to think, sometimes even hard to breathe. He drifts in and out of consciousness until he starts to feel a little more normal.

When he's sure he can, Barry makes himself crawl into the main room and go digging around for food. He happens on a little bottle of pain meds in his search and spends a good ten minutes thanking any deity that might listen to him. Then he swallows the biggest advisable dosage, eats some more carrots, and drags his ass back to bed.

It takes a while for the pain to dissipate, and by the time it does, he's finished the entire bottle of pain meds he'd found in the cabinet. It's fine though, because he still has enough food to last a little while longer. One small advantage of not getting out of bed for several days is that he didn't have to count that time in his rationing. It's just a void where no food eating even happened.

Barry thinks he understands what the letter meant about feeling better. He'll give himself a few more days. His belly is starting to look less bloated. Maybe he'll even be able to wear his jeans again.

That's the goal, he decides. He'll put some blood in the green tube thing when he can wear jeans. He trusts the letter leaver well enough at this point. After all, why would someone leave pain meds and food and shelter for a week and a half if they didn't have some interest in his preservation?

He wonders again who they are.


	12. Chapter 12

Barry packs his bags.

He doesn't take everything he feels like he needs to keep safe with him. Something tells him that if he leaves things in this cave, he won't lose them, they'll be reasonably safe here, even though he knows that someone else uses this cave- very openly, since they left him a letter. He hopes to meet them at some point, but for now, he has nothing to work with. So he packs his bags, all the rest of the food, some money he finds in a dresser drawer, an extra pair of jeans. He fills his waterskin with water from the little spring down the hall. He takes a break before setting out, sipping on the water and eating a carrot. It should take him about a day to get into town – his food will hardly last that time, and he might need to rest more, but he'll survive. The money should get him a room in town and food long enough for him to find a job. He'll be fine. He'll do great!

He has no idea what he's doing. He's going to have to take what he can get, because he has no history with anyone whatsoever and all he remembers about himself is that he's a fighter. He'll work it out, though. He'll find a little mercenary job somewhere or something. Guarding something. Maybe a job on a caravan which will give him food in trade for his work. He doesn't really need money, just food and water and shelter. For now. Some money would be nice later, when he remembers more about his existence, maybe, but for now he'd just like to survive.

 

Barry ends up getting work on Craig's list.

Craig's list is… well. It's weird. But he got an official amateur mercenary license. He stands uncomfortably near the bar of a place he was supposed to meet his first tenant, waiting for them to show up.

“Hey.”

Barry jumps about five feet in the air. He turns around. A tiefling with dyed-blonde hair pulled back from their face in a low ponytail smiles at him.

“You're uh, Barry Bluejeans, right?”

“Y-yeah, that's me,” Barry says. “Are you Derrick?”

“That's me.”

Barry shifts awkwardly. He doesn't know what to do in this situation. He can't even remember if he's been to a job interview before. Fuck, what if he's never been to a job interview before? He must have been, it feels like it's been an endlessly long time. A decade, a century, a veritable forever.

Derrick leaves him standing there and buys a drink. Barry snaps out of it and pulls himself onto the next barstool, ordering one of his own with the last of his gold.

“So what's your prior experience with mercenary work?” Derrick asks, leaning on an arm.

“I don't know.”

“Do you mean that you don't have any, or...”  
“I can't remember. I- uh, well. I'm strong? I'm a fighter. I did a lot of that stuff as a kid, I think. I don't know. I can't remember-- like ten years? But. I need a job.”

Derrick frowns. “Well, we won't put you on anything too difficult right away, then.”

Barry lets out a puff of breath he didn't realize he was holding. Better than nothing.

 

* * *

 

 

Angus is four, and already eloquent, her Common is immaculate and she's learned a touch of Elvish too, bright and more than willing to learn. Mr. Mcdonald is proud of her. He's proud, even on the days he finds her poking around in books she shouldn't know exist yet, and days when she gets all dirty and he can't get all the soot out of her hair after three washings. She sits up straight at the table and still sometimes eats her chicken with her hands. And she watches him with her bright eyes and waits like she's expecting something.

“Grandpa?”

“Hm?” Mr. Mcdonald opts to actually cut his own chicken with a knife. He's not sure whether he should criticise a four-year old on their eating habits quite yet. She's very young.

“You're not my grandpa.”

“Yes I am.”

“Gemetacally. Though. You're not.”

“That's true. Where'd you learn such a big word?”

“Books.” Angus bites a piece of chicken off again and chews slowly. “One day I've decided Ima be the worlds greatest detective.”

“Is that so.”

“Mhmyeah.”

“Doctor Maryam said she would come get you in a year. That didn't happen.”

“Doctor Maryam?”

“The young lady who dropped you off. I don't believe she's actually related to you.”

“I'm gonna go draw,” Angus says.

“Have fun,” Mr. Mcdonald calls after her. She does that all the time, just gets up and moves on when she's decided that she's done with things. Maybe not the best reaction. That won't go over well in the real world.

But she's only four, so it can be allowed.

He's glad he's had children before. He feels a pang of longing, because he wishes they were still here, but no- they, too, got a letter, and went off to the felicity wilds chasing something.

 

* * *

 

 

Turns out Barry is very, very good at mercenary work. He shrugs off hits without trouble and keeps fighting, he works well with others and doesn't go crazy when he's alone. In fact, he seems to be emotionally suited to working in just about every condition imaginable.

They also discover, about three months into his employment, that Barry works best in groups of seven.

He spends a lot of his time not thinking about the note in the cave. Or the cave at all. Or the fact that he left some blood in that fucking tube and he has no idea what that means or whether it was the right choice. He spends a lot of time not thinking about the fact that he felt so awful then. Instead, he drinks beer, picks on befuddled transphobes here and there, and earns a living killing shit. It's not so bad.

When he sees a sign for a gender neutral bathhouse, outside a little elven town where the caravan he's guarding stops, he decides to give it a shot. Because after all – it's elven, and elves don't do gender the way humans do. And he has the money, and they're staying here overnight. How long has it been since Barry got a good bath? Too long. Bathing in rivers and streams is fine, but it's not optimal cleanliness.

He's not even sure where he gets his standards for cleanliness from. He can't remember bathing anywhere that isn't a river or a stream, unless one counts spongebaths, which are never as satisfying. And if he really hasn't had a fancy bath, why does he feel so strongly about it? What the fuck is his game here?

Barry stops pontificating his own understanding of cleanliness and pays the front desk for a few hours in the bathhouse. It occurs to him that a horde of strangers are going to see his naked body, but fuck it. This is elf territory. Elves are nice about these things. He feels like he should be allowed to walk around naked sometimes, as long as everyone who sees him is okay with it, that is… which doesn't seem like a situation which would arise much. Another strange opinion.

He throws opinions in his locker with his clothes and rinses himself off with the standing shower before heading into the baths themselves. Even just his mini-shower feels much better than the cleansing he's been getting. Barry sighs under the cool spray.

The actual pools are warm. Quite a few attractive elves of varying races are wading in the water. He feels a little self-conscious again, but hangs up his towel at the wall and slides into the water anyway, trying to relax in the warmth. It's been a long time since he sat down in some hot water.

He's rinsing out his hair when an older elf approaches him. He swallows. How are elves so fucking _tall_?

“Do you have children?”

Barry blinks. “What?”

“Do you have children?”  
“I- Okay, uh, first off, that's a really personal question and – also, do I look like a person who-- can't take care of children, I'm a mercenary.”

“I forgot how humans are.” The elf chuckles. “You do look like someone who has had children.”

“Why? That's-- well.” He can't think about this, for some reason, that kind of question makes him hit a mental wall. He's been asked adjacent questions before, but it's been a while. He just can't process them.

“Your body.”

“Do you ask everybody this?”

“No, why would I?”

“I-- it's just such a weird question.”

They shrug. “Do you want a backrub?”

“That's uh, quite the three-sixty,” Barry says.

“Is that a yes?”

“Yeah- fuck, why the hell not, okay.”  
The elf, for all their eccentricities, is very good at backrubs.

 

Usually, when Barry spends an evening on the town, he's out till late. Today, he does stop at the bar, but he gets a drink to go and heads back to the caravan. Derrick is surprised to see him.

Barry plops himself down next to his boss and offers him a sip from his growler. “Is it my face?”

“Huh?” Derrick takes a drink from the proffered growler.

“I got asked if I have kids again today.”

Derrick shrugs. “Dunno, man, you do look like a dad.”

“That's so fucking-- I don't get it.” He puts his head in his hands. “I'm like, ninety percent sure I haven't dated since I was like twenty.”

“You can't even remember the fifteen years after that, though, dude. Fifteen years is long enough to _raise_ human kids.”

“What if I do have kids, and they're dead?” Barry laughs. “Maybe that's why I can't remember. Shell shock or something.”

“You don't seem very shell shocked.”

“I dunno, I'm still scared of the dark.”

Derrick hands the growler back. Barry stares down the neck of it for a few minutes.

“Whatever, dude. It doesn't effect your work much so it's fine.”

“Y-yeah.” Barry laughs. “I'll uh, watch the cart tonight.” Watching the cart is a guarantee of solitude. No sleep, but definitely alone time.

“Oh- thanks.”

“No problem.”

There's parts of Barry's life that just don't make any sense. He's unsettled when the clouds are still and low-hanging, but watching people die never seems to hit him very hard. He doesn't just feel like he's missing something. He feels like he's missing some _one_ , and that someone is so important to him that it's torn a huge hole out of his mind.

Barry cries a little. He's so, so confused. What is wrong with him? What disappeared and left him like this?

He feels a little closer to himself when he drinks, so he downs his growler. He can almost see her when he drinks. Whoever she is, she's important. He wants to tell her to come back. It's alright. It can just be the seven of them again, and they'll leave behind what's lost, just like they always do.

 

* * *

 

 

Grandpa's not really there anymore.

It's not that he's out on trips. He used to be out on trips sometimes, but now he's present, physically, but less around. Angus is nearly six now and old enough to put together that something's wrong with Grandpa's mind.

Angus is also old enough to realize that there's something wrong with the way people see them. It doesn't take them long to solve the mystery.

“Grandpa?”

“Mhmmmm?”

“Am I a boy?”

“No.”

“Can I be a boy?”

Grandpa just shrugs. He turns a page in his reader and proceeds to ignore Angus entirely.

Angus begins to wish there were books on this.

The elven section of the library has something – a few books on how gender identity is a social construct, but Angus is too young to understand all the rules. They come back to the thought over and over. He. Maybe they're a he. They stopped thinking about themself as _She_ a while back, just because it started to be too sticky in their brain.

“I'm Angus Mcdonald,” they say to the mirror. “Boy. Boy detective.”

Yeah.

He thinks about his hair for a little bit. Does he want it long? Some boys have long hair. He decides to cut it off anyway, so that it falls right around his shoulders in little waves. He gets fancy clothes with his grandpa's money, because his grandpa doesn't watch him too closely anymore.

Grandpa still calls him “she”.

Grandpa still tells people he's five, though. He's seven now.

He'd like his grandpa back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I cut my hair_  
>  _To make you stare_  
>  _I'll hide my chest and I'll_  
>  _Figure out a way to get us out of here._  
>  -Cavetown, _This is Home_


	13. Chapter 13

Barry's standing at the edge of a sea. It undulates, black and forbidding, glimmering with little spots of light. It makes bile rise in his throat. He turns around.

He can see his own dead body on the ground. Its bloated belly is cut open, its eyes staring. Red wisps of fabric catch around his ankles.

The sea reaches around Barry's legs and drags the corpse into the sea.

 

And he wakes up, shaking in a cold sweat, feeling like his brain has filled over with fog. He probably makes some kind of noise because Derrick rolls over.

“You kay?”

“What?” Barry wheezes.

“You made a noise.”

Barry pushes himself up, trying to get in a full breath to respond. He can't quite. Whenever he focuses on his dream, he hits that same, horrifying wall of static. He lets his head fall back against the wall.

By the time his breathing is under control, he doesn't feel quite… there. Not that he ever could be, with his mind all wiped out like that.

He rolls over and goes back to sleep.

 

“Haah!”

Oh shit.

Barry realizes a few moments too late that he should have been covering his coworker's flanks better. Man, he doesn't even remember this guy's _name_ , but at very least he should be watching.

The three of them are surrounded by goblins, which would be fine, except their wizard just took a hit. Barry grabs the man's sword off his back and lobs it at two oncoming goblins, impaling both of them. He turns back around and narrowly misses getting stabbed.

“You alright?” He yells over the clamor, chopping a head off.

He doesn't get a response.

He stabs one of the last three goblins through the neck and turns to Derrick. “Can you handle this?”

“Uh, yeah,” Derrick says, throwing a knife somewhere.

“Thanks.”

The other dude isn't dead, thank gods, but he sure as fuck passed out there. Barry's not sure what he can do about a knife through someone's leg, but he knows the knife has to come out eventually, so as soon as he's gotten the guy out of the middle of the fight and to a bit of ground that is at least temporarily unbloodied he removes it.

It's times like this that Barry wishes he knew some magic – or, at very least, first aid. He rummages around in his bag until he finds some bandages and puts them down on the ground. No healing potions, unfortunately.

How does magic work? Wizards just learn it, he knows that. Healing usually comes from gods, though. He licks his lips.

Barry tugs at something inside himself and sends a prayer to whoever will listen at the same time, putting a hand against the man's thigh.

When he opens his eyes, he's astonished to find that it _worked_. The wound has stopped bleeding, and though it's far from healed, it doesn't look like it'll need stitches anymore. Barry tucks gauze under the man's pants through the slit where he was stabbed and wraps it in place with bandages.

Derrick walks over a minute later. “He gonna be okay?”

“Y-yeah,” Barry says. “I uh, might have healed him? A little? Like with magic?”

Derrick laughs. “You sure are full of surprises, Bluejeans.”  
“Yeah, no kidding,” Barry says. He starts to stand up, and almost blacks out from dizziness.

“You doing okay there?”

“Yeah?” Barry still feels like he's swimming a little.

“Take your time. I guess we're staying here till Carl wakes up.”

“Is that his name?”

“Yeah-- you didn't know his name?”

Barry shrugs. “Guess not.”

 

He dies the next morning. Knife through the lungs, choked on his own blood. Not great.

Barry doesn't think he's ever regretted dying more. He realizes, as he sinks back into a wall and Derrick discovers his dead body, that he can never work with these people again. If they recognized him, if they knew who he was… he'll have to work places far from Phandalin for a while, just for safety.

He does head to his cave, though, before he does anything else. He recognizes the problems with how he acted last: he needs to make it clear that he's Barry, actual real Barry Fucking Bluejeans, so his living personality isn't so uncomfortable with him. What can he say that will convince himself of who he is?

His body looks much less fucked this time, to his relief. Man, this is the kind of necromancy he was terrified of in his youth. There's a reason Barry became a fighter before attending the IPRE's school to pursue his one true love.

 

_Hello Barry._

_It's me, I'm you. Your name is Barry Bluejeans, you're five-seven, you're afraid of the dark and like swimming in the morning. You feel like you're missing something and you're not sure what it is._

_Please write a note back telling me how you feel. Then, go find a job. Don't work with a tiefling named Derrick. He's not a bad person, in fact, he's a wonderful person, but he can't know that you're alive. Shit went down._

_I'd suggest heading towards Neverwinter for work. You have experience. You've assisted on multiple caravans and fought in several raids. That should be enough bragging for people to hire you._

_Good luck._

 

* * *

 

 

Angus puts his credentials on the table and waits.

Getting a job is, for a child, much harder than it could have been. He's had to resort to working for the black market, though he feels he's not breaking any laws in his line of employment. After all, he's helping to bring people to justice, however covertly. Family can't pay for a lawyer? Well, Angus has the law memorized. He can help. Someone need a detective to figure out who killed their wife, as fast as possible, they were framed for it? Absolutely. Angus knows how to deliver the evidence in such a way that no one will suspect fraud.

He goes home to the family mansion and lets his grandfather use the wrong pronouns and wonders where his parents are, and if they're even alive.

Both sets of parents. His real ones and his biological ones. Both disappeared when he was so young. He has a few memories with the Mcdonalds, but they're quick and rather meaningless. Two adult humans. Dad's soft hair and dark eyes. He has no memories of his biological parents whatsoever, which isn't surprising. He's been told that he was dropped off by a tall, white-haired woman when he was just a baby.

He pictures her – a moon elf, maybe, since drow are short, pale and stricken, cradling someone else's child in her shaking arms. No, she's not the mother, she says. In his dreams, her hair is long and flowing. Doctor Maryam. What a pretty, elven name.

He'll solve that mystery later.

“Angus? Baby? Where've you been?” Grandpa calls down the stairs.

“Out playing, Grandpa,” Angus calls back. He starts up the stairs, turning towards his bedroom.

“Out so late?”

“I had school, too,” Angus says. “And now I have homework. I'll tell you when dinner's ready.”

“Are you old enough for school?”

“Yes, grandpa. I'm eight. I'll talk to you later, okay?”

A grumble.

He doesn't go to school: that's a well practiced lie for the sake of the servants. He doesn't have homework, either. He has court cases to work on.

He'd like to get a real job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short one this time.   
> Thanks again for reading!! <3


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real excited to release this chapter!

Barry finds a little half-elf in Neverwinter one fine July afternoon. He's sitting on a bench, looking through work fliers, when the kid approaches him. His first impression is that the kid must be rich: they're wearing well cut, very good looking clothing. Then he recognizes the work stains on the ends of the sleeves, a hole in the shirt, and he edits that deduction. Was rich. (Is rich, but with neglectful parents?)

The kid sits down next to him on the bench, flipping through a small notebook.

“Are you looking for jobs, sir?”

“Ye-yeah, yeah, why did – how'd you know?”

“All the fliers.” Angus shrugs. “People who aren't looking for jobs don't generally pick up job fliers.”

“Oh- yeah, that's – perfectly fair, yeah.”

He sizes up the elven kid. Couldn't be more than nine years old. Big, floppy ears, bronze skin, the same brown hair as his own, but not quite as curly and golden where the sun hits it, bleached on the edges. Big, denim-blue eyes. The kid looks a lot like him. Something tugs in his chest again, something about children. Maybe he had a kid at some point. Maybe he miscarried, or maybe the kid died real young, he's not sure. He's heard of people forgetting about traumatic things entirely. He shakes the idea away. That's too close to the wall of static in his mind. He's here now, and he can't remember, and maybe it should stay that way.

“Sir?”

“Yeah?”

“Could you help me get a job with the militia?”

“Uh, maybe,” Barry shrugs.

“Cool! I'm Angus Mcdonald, by the way!” The kid offers him a hand to shake.

“Uh. Barry. Barry Bluejeans. Yeah.” He takes the proffered hand. Angus has a firm grip. “Angus is a good name.”

“Thank you, sir! I didn't pick it. My father did, apparently. Not my real father. My birth father. I've never met him.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” Barry says, taken aback at the bluntness. He supposes that's how kids are. “I think if you want a different name, you should be able to choose one. I chose my name.”

“No, I really like this name. It's all I have of him. Whoever he was.”

Barry feels something tug in his chest again. “Did you, uh, want to get a job?”

“Yes, I would, sir!”

“What kind of job were you looking for?” Barry starts gathering up the fliers, sliding them back into his bag.

The kid hops off the bench. “I'm a detective!”

“R-Really?”

“Yeah! I have some experience but we don't talk about that.”

“If you say so.”

Neverwinter is a big city. It reminds him of goldcliff a little, a place he actually has visited. Barry realizes that he's gawking at some of the bigger buildings – there's a bank going up in the middle of town, almost fully assembled – and shuts his mouth, eyes on the little vendors nearer to the ground. The place is bustling. He watches a couple of little elven kids steal a loaf of bread, and that tugging in his chest returns, plain as day. What does it _mean_? Is it something to do with what he's missing in his past?

The militia has a small building about a block from the bank, considerably less shiny for than the bank itself, but still well cared for. Angus pushes through the creaky doors and climbs onto a chair to see over the counter.

“Hello sirs?” Angus calls into the backrooms. He waits, and before long a halfling woman comes climbing onto a stool on the other side of the counter, clipboard in hand.

“Yes?”

“Uh, hi?” Barry waves awkwardly. “I'm uh, Barry Bluejeans, I'm looking for a job.”

“Here in town?” the halfling asks, scribbling his name into the empty name slot on her form. “Or something more like an escort job?”

“More of an escort. I'm a mercenary by trade.”

“Do you have a license?”

“Uh, yeah, I do, it's uh-- in here--” He digs his old license out of his napsack. “It's a bit dinged up, sorry.”

“That's alright. What's with the kid?”

“He was looking for a job, too.”

The halfling chews her lip. “You know we can't authorize child labor without consent of a parent. Are you his parent?”

Barry glances at Angus. In a moment of impulsivity, he makes a decision. The kid had asked him to help him get a job, and this was probably what he meant. They certainly look similar enough. “Yeah.”

The woman appraises him and Angus for a moment, and then must decide that he's telling the truth, because she pulls out another clipboard. “What's your name, kid?”

“Angus Mcdonald!” Angus says, leaning on the counter. “I'm a detective!”

“Well, we can at least give you an apprenticeship,” she mutters. “Mcdonald? And you're… Bluejeans?”

Barry shuffles. “I uh, changed my name. A few years ago.” It's only half a lie, as far as he can remember.

“Hm.” She writes something on Angus's clipboard. “Alright, sign.”

That went smoother than expected.

Barry waits at the train station with Angus, just to hold up the guise of the parent-child thing a little longer. They sit on a bench, watching trains at other boarding docks leave the station, the smell of soot potent in the air.

“Sir,” Angus says out of nowhere.

“Yeah?”

“Here.” He hands Barry a little card. It's a business card, with Angus's name and farspeech signal written on it.

“What--?”

“If you need to reach me. I thought you'd like to have it.”

“You're an eight year old child giving a stranger your farspeech code.”

“Yes?” Angus shrugs. “I'm armed and trained in combat.”

“Um. Well I don't have a stone, sorry. But I'll keep in touch if- If I can.”

“Thanks, sir,” Angus says.

The train rolls up a few minutes later, and Barry keeps waving long after it's gone, that tugging sensation in his chest bringing him close to tears. He doesn't even know this kid. Why does he care so much? Why does he care so deeply about everyone he meets?

Seems like a bad survival tactic.

It's a wonder he's lived this long.

 

He's almost late for his mission. Almost. He arrives, out of breath, at the edge of town, just before the caravan he's supposed to be guarding leaves. He gives his new boss an apologetic grimace as he hops on. It's supposed to be just a simple mission from Neverwinter to a small town in the countryside and back.

It's not.

The caravan is ambushed by thieves, miles from any town, and most of it is laid waste or stolen. The carriages themselves are burned. Barry dies with three arrows in his back, face down in a ravine by the side of the road.

Once again, he's careful not to be seen. Once again, he catalogs the names of those he worked for and with, so he won't meet them on purpose again. He drags his dead body into the trees and buries it as discreetly as he can, covering it with live moss like tucking someone into bed. It occurs to him that he's been buried like this in multiple planes. He's so used to disposing of his own body that it comes naturally to him.

He sits down by a tree – best as a lich can do – and enjoys the sunset. Technically, he can travel at any time while he's a lich, because liches don't have to be visible, but Barry's been alive long enough and often enough to be used to travelling after dark.

Then he remembers Angus.

_“_ _I didn't pick it. My father did, apparently. Not my real father. My birth father. I've never met him.”_

Who did Lucretia give him to?

It wrecks him, just a little bit, to know that Angus doesn't think of him as his real father. Then again, the kid has only met him once, and thought he was completely unrelated to him. He remembered the way the kid looked – no, there's no way that he wasn't Barry's kid, and.

He looks almost nothing like Lup. Same nose, same eye shape, and a darker skin tone than Barry's, but otherwise, the kid got mostly his genes. And he was living as a boy. Barry almost laughs out loud. If being trans was genetic, of course Angus Bluejeans would inherit it.

He'd always pictured Angus and Lup as looking like Lup herself, golden haired and golden eyed and dark skinned. It shouldn't surprise him that that's not the case at all. He knows how genetics work enough to know that genetics don't work like that. It hurts him a little, though. He still hasn't found Lup.

Who did Lucretia give him to? The Mcdonalds. He doesn't know anything about that family. From the way Angus was dressed, they were well off but didn't take very good care of him. From the way Angus had acted, they weren't even well off. What sort of kid finds a guy on the street that looks vaguely like him and convinces that guy to sign off has his legal guardian? A kid who needs money, badly. But then again, it wasn't even just kinda similar. Angus and Barry are eerily similar. They both wear glasses, they both have denim-blue eyes and brown curly hair. Angus probably came up with that plan on the spot, just looked at Barry and went, oh goodness that man looks a lot like me. The kid did say he was a detective. Barry wonders if Angus has decided that Barry is his bio dad or not.

He doesn't exactly have enough evidence to support that, but he doesn't have much against it either. Especially if the kid's a smart enough person to realize that Barry isn't the only one running into a memory wall.

Barry gets up, and goes back to his cave. A new body is almost finished inside. Maybe he should look for work outside Phandalin again. There's a reason why he set up camp there, after all. He spends a few weeks just puttering around, gathering intel and food for his new body, counting down the days. Beyond finding Angus, he didn't learn a lot about what's going on while he was alive this time. He should have guessed that she wouldn't keep him on that lich-protected moon base of hers. That might even be cruel, since Barry can't visit. He wonders if the lich guard is against him, or if there's something else going on that made Lucretia hurt. He hopes it's just him. That would be wonderfully easy to explain.

He realizes that he's lucky that he is impossible to comprehend for most citizens when it occurs to him that there are plenty of paladins out there who would sell their legs for the opportunity to take down a lich.

He hopes, again, that Lup is okay. That she's just incapacitated somewhere. That she hasn't been erased entirely, or cast into the astral plane by some higher power. He misses her, clearly, but it hurts even more when he can't even remember that she's real. Some things simply can't be achieved as a lich, though, and being alive for short spurts of time is unavoidable as a result.

He wanders around Phandalin and Hogsbottom, invisible, for a few days, picking up information where he can. When he finds something about dwarves and mercenary work, he sets his plans in stone: He's definitely going to find work in Phandalin.

The next person Barry hands his scuffed-up mercenary license off to is a man named Gundren Rockseeker.


	15. Chapter 15

These three give Barry a good feeling. He's not sure why, but they give him a good feeling. He can trust them. A short elf, a tall human, and an average-sized dwarf, also working for Gundren, sitting around the bar table with him and nursing ciders. The dwarf doesn't have a cider. He introduces himself as Merle Highchurch, and apparently he's a cousin of Gundren's.

“Are all dwarves related?” the elf laughs.

“Well technically, yeah,” Merle grunts in return.

There's something about the elf that feels especially important to him, but he can't put a finger on what.

He loses track of them for a little while on their mission, because he and Gundren go ahead. Gundren had taken all his experience at face-value, which Barry is thankful for, because he doesn't remember actually doing most of it, and he's pretty sure that he's supposedly dead after several of those runs – he shouldn't be surprised he can't remember it if people thought he died. Probably hit his head real hard.

And then something hits him in the head real hard, and he loses consciousness.

 

He wakes up in a dungeon. Wonderful. His vision is blurry, and it's not because his glasses aren't on – he can see the frames.

“Hello?”

“Shut up,” someone says, hitting him hard on the arm. He groans. Wonderful. He must have been kidnapped or something.

At some point, after some length of time, he's dragged somewhere. Someone hits him in the head again.

 

He wakes up again to someone slapping his face. Everything hurts. He blinks up at the face swimming above him, incapable of thinking hard enough to put two and two together. He's definitely alive, though. Something about the situation makes him more glad to be alive than usual. That's such an odd thought. Why would anyone have a sliding scale of glad to be alive-ness?

The elf -Taako- puts a potion to his lips and he drinks it down on reflex, relieved to discover it's a healing potion.

“This is-- This is wonderful. Thank you. Thank you, you kind soul. I will never ever forget this kindness that you have done for me.” Did he introduce himself? “My name is Barry J. Bluejeans, and I’m ready to kick some goblin ass! Where did they go?”

“Listen, all of the asses have been kicked, dear Barry.”

“Where-- You didn’t leave me _one_ ass?

“No, we--”

Merle interrupts. “There’s some stuff out in the weeds, if you’re really interested in it.”

Taako sticks out his tongue and turns around, fishing in a trunk behind him. He pulls out bluejeans.

“We have your clothes.”

“Thanks.” He shimmies into his jeans. It's a relief to have them back-- it feels like the damn jeans are just about the only part of his identity he can just keep on him.

Merle mutters something about bluejeans to Magnus.

“Yeah, well, yeah. No _shit_. How you think-- Why do you think they call me that? What do you--You think that this is a family name?”

They stare at him. Merle looks a few minutes from hurling him over the cliff's edge, which… okay, that's not great. Abort.

“Oh, guys, thank you so much. For the healing potion.” he pauses to put on his shirt. “And the blue jeans.” He pulls his armor on and fixes up his supplies.

“Let’s get outta here,” Magnus says. Taako shoots him a look.

“What do you know about this Black Spider?” Merle asks, and then he sees the little nonverbal conversation the other two are having and turns around.

“Yeah. Let’s get the hell outta this cave. I am not a big fan of this cave,” Barry announces, pushing himself to his feet. He's still a little achy but feeling much better.

Merle nods. They head out.

 

Barry stays in Phandalin. Something about continuing this journey felt prophetic to him, and something about Taako… Barry wanted some hot wings. Travelling will not get him hot wings.

Then the city goes up in flames. With his heart in his throat, Barry ushers people deeper into the basement-- the fire seems to be coming from an angry dwarf. Is that Gundren? He has no idea what's going on. Maybe he should have gone with the party after all.

He dies.

Resuming his Lich form, Barry decides that for a little while, he needs to stay lich. Besides, his new body is a good eight months from completion. He's been lucky, in the past, but now, he doesn't have much choice but to wait.

Besides, he found three members of the IPRE-- alive and well. Three. Taako, Merle, and Magnus. That means over half of them are alive. All he's missing is Davenport, and, of course, Lup. He hopes that Davenport is with Lucretia, because that makes things easier.

  
The second time he runs into them, he puts on an elaborate guise so they can't see his face or tell who he is-- he doesn't need that kind of trouble, not yet, and he hasn't quite figured out how to make his face disappear entirely, though he knows it's possible.

He discerns that they've forgotten everything. They don't remember the hunger. And that's an issue because – he might have been the only one to notice this – the scouts have arrived. They spent a good minute checking out Lucretia's moon base, which must be where the majority of the light is. He can't guess what she's doing, but he can guess that she's planning to enact her planet-surrounding plan.

It's such a bad idea. The world needs its bonds to the other planes. That's literally why the grass goes, why magic disconnects at the end of a cycle. It's the hunger's plan to start with, to block out other planes. They'd have no magic, no progress, nothing if they got rid of their connections. It'd be impossible to survive.

 

They have half a year. The boys are on a mission again, and Barry has figured out how to stop time.

The boys don't seem to understand when he talks about the hunger, and the most he can do is drop hints. It sucks pretty royal ass.

Then he notices the umbrella.

Lup's umbrella.

“Taako? Taako, where did you find that umbrella?”

Taako shrugs. “Yeah, I took it off this uhh, I took it off this dead thug with a red robe. This dead guy, he had a red robe.”

“You f- you, you-” He can't – liches don't have to breathe, why is this-- he's panicking.

“He was totes dead!” Magnus says, cheerfully.

“He was dead though, I didn’t--” Merle interrupts Taako.

“You just killed-Did we kill him or--?”

“No.”

“No. Okay, we would have!”

“He was long dead.” Magnus puts in.

This is fucking Barry up a lot. They're standing around, misgendering her, talking about how they'd like her dead. At least, from what he can grasp through his panic, she's probably been dead since before the relic wars ended. Which, honestly, isn't better. That's almost worse.

“No problem, no problem here,” Taako adds.

He's losing control of his magic.

“Wha- What? Where di-? What did you--?”

“You _found her_??” Barry shrieks, losing control by accident.

“It was a lady?” He hears Merle say just before he combusts.

He wakes up, still spasming, in his cave. Fuck.

Fuck.

Of course they wouldn't tell him. They didn't remember that she existed, let alone that she left. They didn't even remember her gender. Not even Taako seems to remember Lup. He curls up at the corner of his cave like he did when he first died after Lucretia erased everything and half-sobs through the spasms of panic and loss. What does he do now? What _can_ he do now?

He's pretty sure of a few things, now: First, that Angus is with Lucretia, somewhere, from the sound on their stone while they were talking to her. That's good, because he trust Lucretia enough to take care of those who need it. He doesn't exactly love that she's throwing the boys into the fire instead of going herself, but last time he checked on her she wasn't doing so hot, and self-preservation is worthwhile when you're the only person in the world who remembers the existence of the greatest evil in all of them. Barry couldn't take over her job for her, not while dead.

And the umbra staff eats magic.

It takes him a few weeks to put together that Lup is trapped inside the staff. Of course she was dead. She went lich form, and the staff absorbed her. Why hadn't they thought of that before? It hadn't been an issue, he supposes. After they created the staff, she never died. Maybe if she had, they would have had to figure out how to get her out of it.

But she's safe. She can't be destroyed if her magical signal is that weak and leads back to an umbrella. It's no wonder no one found her until now. And she's on Taako's arm, which is the best place for her, including his own. Taako and Lup belong together no matter who they're dating or married to. No matter who they might have kids with. Just because Barry's Lup's husband, doesn't mean that she isn't best off in Taako's hands.

 

It hurts him, though. Slowly but surely, Barry feels himself losing bits and pieces that he needs. The next time he sees the boys – battered, their faces just that little bit of downturned that he remembers from cycles where a lot of people died – he finds himself close to tears. He just wants their little family back together. Sure, they were watching cities and towns get decimated under the force of the grand relics, but they weren't the aimless mess that remains in the wake of Lucretia's destruction.

She made him the enemy.

All his concerns about the lich shield, they all come back to haunt him. She was keeping him out. Him and Lup. She was purposefully trying to block them away.

And they don't trust him.

He should have known.

He should have guessed.

“I can't do it anymore, Lup. I'm sorry.”

 

He doesn't show up to them right away, next time. In Wonderland, he stays hidden. In Wonderland, Magnus trusts him.

And then he gets his body back.

And it's over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh these past few weeks have been hectIC as fuCK. I'm moving on Friday and just Hell you know? Hell. Life. UHG H!  
> Update from Tunaverse goes as following:  
> -I'm going to finish writing El Ni tonight and tomorrow. It will post on the same tuesday-friday schedule it has been posting on til it's finished.  
> -I intend to update Breathe Out this week before the move.   
> -i also kinda have comic shit to get on my game for, a job to get interviewed for, other multichapter fics to write for the series I've found myself coauthoring, No Halo shit to write, and... Maybe even... A Fucking Fluff Sequel to This Fucker so   
> Suffice to say  
> im up to my balls in this shit guys
> 
> Thanks for reading, I'll see you.... in a few days, probably.


	16. Chapter 16

The aftermath of Story and Song is the waste of a war. All the destruction the relics had done, combined, would barely be comparable to the destruction the hunger leaves. Cities have been kicked over. Just decimated. Flattened. Being on the moon base, up high and away from the destruction, reminds Barry of standing on the deck of the Starblaster, leaving a world behind. It reminds him of the times that the crew sunk low over the boiling, burning, black glass, candied remains of a ruined home. The days that Merle spent making plants wilt in the lab. Lup curled on the far end of the bed. Lucretia's frantic journal rewriting, which he didn't understand until it was too late. His own helplessness, in those last few months.

It's not better, all of a sudden, just because Angus survived. It's not better just because Lup is back. It's not better even though, for once, they've saved a planar system. Not just probably saved, but honest-to-gods saved. Pan is here. Istus and the Raven queen. There's ground beneath their feet. What if, when the year ends in earnest, they're all just erased again?

And for that matter, he'd been worried about having to leave his kid to grow up on their own. Having to leave the plane, never to return. And in a way, he'd done that. He'd left Angus to his own devices for ten years. Angus doesn't even know him. He's met him once in person and at the time Barry didn't even know he'd borne children.

The skies are clear, though, and sun passes down through the smoke, making god rays.

Standing over the carnage, as close to hand in hand as he can be with Lup, Barry feels sick.

“Come away from the edge, babe,” Lup says.

“What?”

“We're gonna be fine. We did fine. Let's help clean up.”

“Yeah.”

She leads him away. He can still see smoke rising around the base, though. A sick reminder of the number of worlds they left like this, undefended.

 

Angus Mcdonald is the world's greatest detective. Barry doubts, at this point, that that was even an exaggeration. He managed to get himself up to the moonbase even without knowing what it was. He was chasing missing persons reports for people who _no longer existed_. Angus Mcdonald was nine years old when he started taking murder cases, and he's never failed to solve one. Not once.

But he doesn't seem to recognize Barry for exactly who he is.

Barry finds him looking rather exhausted, sitting on the steps to one of the broken domed buildings. He's got bloody fabric wrapped around his right shoulder. It looks like he ripped his pant leg up for makeshift bandaging.

“You're hurt.”

“I'll be okay, mister Bluejeans.”

“I know first aid.”

“It's okay.”

Barry sits down next to Angus on the step. “No, it's not. I know some healing spells and I can stitch a wound. Let me see.”

“I don't want to impose.” Angus licks his lips. “I'm sorry.”

Barry puts his first aid kit down on the top step. “What are you sorry for? It's not your fault you're wounded.”

“I used you to get a job.”

“That-- that was fine. I wanted to help.”

“I shouldn't have been working. I shouldn't be working this young. My family's not poor or anything, I was just. I don't know.”

Angus is right. On one level, it's rather repulsive for a child to have to work. But Angus is incredibly smart, and he seemed so bored. Barry would rather he worked for the militia than whatever shady folks he was working for before he signed him up. Besides, it wasn't even a lie. Barry is Angus's birth father. He doesn't say any of this, though.

“I was working at your age.”

“I'm eleven, sir. I doubt you know anyone who was--”

“Twelve.”

"What, sir? My birthday isn't until --"

"Two months ago. You're _twelve_."

Angus studies Barry's resigned expression. Barry focuses his own attention on healing the ragged gash in Angus's shoulder – bleeding heavily, but not quite deep enough to require stitches, so he just casts his spell. Angus seems to reach a realization about Barry and his heritage as the glow in Barry's fingers subsides.

World's greatest detective, after all.

“Oh,” Angus says. He lowers his head. “ _Oh_.”

Barry uses the long silence to pack his medical kit back up again. The wound is scabbed over, but not fully healed. On its way. Angus will be fine. They sit in silence for a dozen minutes, the smokey air making Barry cough a little. They should figure out how to fix that, maybe.

“Why didn't I grow up with you, then? You were alive.”

“Sorry,” Barry says, on impulse. His hands are shaking as he puts the box back in his demiplane. “I'm sorry, I wasn't--”

“HEY BARRY!” Lup comes running over. She's grinning. “Lucy's got these cookies in her backroom and since I can't-- Oh my god is that Angus?”

“You've met him,” Barry says. Lup let Angus use her while she was in the staff. Maybe that was a knee-jerk reaction. She also ruined his cookies or something, apparently.

“Yeah, but is he _our_ Angus? He doesn't look like me, so --” She pauses. “You look so similar. Like. Fuck, Barry.”

“Yeah.” Barry half-shrugs.

“Hello miss Lup!” Angus says, cheerful again. Then his smile falters as he glances back and forth between them. Something clicks in the kid's head.

“Hey kid,” Lup says, ruffling his hair with mage hand. “Have a cookie. Barry, where's the other one?”

Barry looks up, across the campus, to Lucretia. She's standing bent over her staff. She looks like an old wizard with her robes blowing in the wind like that. She _is_ an old wizard now, he realizes. 

“Barry? What's--” Lup follows Barry's gaze right as he looks away. “Did Lucretia-? What happened, Barry? Why are you crying? _Barry_.”

Barry vaguely remembers the pain of his last few hours in his original body. Lucretia was crying. He'd fallen to the dizziness of hunger and exhaustion. He remembers cutting open his own body, dragging out the corpse of the baby. At least Angus survived. What would he have done if the other one had too? Taken them with him? Would he even have bothered to resurrect himself? After all, he doesn't know how much he would have forgotten in his human form.

“I died.”

“Did you die while-- oh my _gods_.”

“What are you talking about?” Angus asks. He looks worried. He seems to be a little scared of Lup, still, understandably. Her face is a skull unless she puts active effort into making it a face.

“Your twin.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND THATS A WRAP!! all that's left is an epilouge and the maybe-sequel-that-might-happen. Maybe. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	17. Chapter 17

The night after the storm, Angus doesn't sleep.

First off, his shoulder is still aching. Every time he closes his eyes, he's jerked awake by the image of a pillar of swirling darkness descending from the sky, crushing a city beneath it. He's stopped laying on his pillow and started hugging it an hour ago.

Secondly, Angus never thought of himself as a person with blood relatives. Certainly not living ones. The Barry Bluejeans he met on the street is so different from the one he talked to today. He had picked the man to trick into signing his papers because he looked a lot like him, but…

Barry and Lup are _gods_.

Lucretia's journals.

They died a bunch of times. All of them. He can remember some of their deaths clearly now, like pictures in his mind. Numbing and close. His heart beats a little too fast for comfort and he hugs his pillow even closer.

He had a twin.

He _is_ a twin.

That means nothing to him, right? What does that even mean? It's not as if anyone kept that from him, because they were all mindwashed or dead, but he would have liked to grow up knowing about his dead twin, right? Would that have ruined his childhood? He has no idea. What does death even mean to a person whose parents were swallowed in Wonderland?

He has so many parent figures now. The Mcdonalds. Lucretia. Grandpa. And now, all of a sudden, he knows who he's related to. Barry and Lup. They were right there the whole time. He's destined to slide from family to family, isn't he? He's going to have to learn if he gets along with Barry and Lup. They're veritable strangers. He can't go home, though. His parents are dead. His grandpa is dead. He's stuck up here with these magical, idyllic beings from another planar system _entirely_. They're aliens. _He's_ an alien. Native, but certainly not indigenous, to this plane. He doesn't want to live with two people so wholly frightening and unfamiliar as Lup and Barry. What choice does he have, though?

Maybe he can stay with Lucretia.

Does Barry hate Lucretia?

It's plausible. Reasonable, to hate Lucretia. She did a bad job at one point and hurt her friends. Possibly even caused his sibling's death? Maybe not. He'd have to ask her. He's pretty good at telling what's truth and what's not.

Maybe he could stay with Taako or Magnus. There's problems there, though, too. No matter how much he knows about Taako from the century, he knows his uncle – holy shit, his _uncle_ – is not good with kids. Not good at being respectful or polite or anything other than in your face all the time. And Magnus may be nice, but he's treated Angus like a dog in the past.

He has some good memories with Lucretia. She sits with him in the library. One time, he couldn't sleep, and she got him some pie.

He wouldn't mind some pie.

Angus lies in bed, running his thoughts in circles, for another hour before forcing himself to get up, get out of bed, and do something. Anything. He stands by his bed for a few minutes before pulling on a robe and wandering into the hall.

He goes to Lucretia's office.

She's sorting through books. The door has been blown off its hinges, her desk half covered in dust, and some bits of ceiling litter the floor. She moves like she's exhausted, but too jittery to sleep. Angus understands.

Angus opens his mouth to say something, to get her attention. Maybe he should knock on the broken door? What comes out, though, is dreadfully to the point.

“How was I born?”

Lucretia startles, predictably, and drops the notebooks she was holding. Six of them, thick, bound in blue. Her journals, Angus realizes. The ones she rewrote to feed to the voidfish. She turns around, grabs her desk chair, and steadies herself, still visibly trembling.

“Angus. Knock next time.”

“Sorry, Ma'am.” Angus shuffles into the dusty office.

“It's.” Lucretia sighs. “It's fine, I should take a break. Fuck.” She collapses in her chair. “You can sit down.”

“I know, Ma'am.” He takes a seat across from her.

“What did you want to know, again?”

Angus folds his hands on the desk, noticing the age difference between the two of them. Hers are bony. By the time he's her age, he won't look much older than twenty. She's nearly forty now, not counting Wonderland, and there's not a Wonderland left to age him.

“How was I born? I- you have to have been there.”

Lucretia chuckles. “Your birth wasn't dramatic. You were a few months premature, not unsurvivably so. I nursed you. Unfortunately, your sibling was – I think – breech, and I fell asleep with you in my arms. Barry died of exhaustion. I have to assume that Lup died too, because they're not here.”

“Lup?”

“That was going to be their name.”

“But Lup is already--”

“Lup – your mother Lup – is named after her aunt.” Lucretia sighs. “I get the impression that it's a family tradition.”

“Oh.” That was anticlimactic. “You _think_ they were breech?”

“They weren't too big-- you came out just fine. They had to be stuck on something. It's-- Angus, this isn't the most lovely conversation to be having with a twelve year old. Or. You know. Just in general.”

“I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I'm twelve.”

Lucretia emits a high pitched giggle. “That one's on me. I told the Mcdonalds that I didn't know your age. You were a year old at the time, but you were a small baby… they probably thought you were a few _months_ old.”

“Oh.”

“Would you like some… well, the cafeteria isn't running at the moment, would you like some tea?”

“Yes, I would, Ma'am,” Angus sighs.

She stands up, then pauses at the door to her back rooms. “You can come with me, if you'd like.”

Angus follows. It's quaint back here. A little galley-style kitchen is nestled between her bedroom and the small bathroom. She pulls tea down from a high shelf and sets it on the table, then puts the kettle on. Angus takes Davenports old seat, feeling a little tall for it.

Lucretia runs a hand through her pale, tight curls, sighing as she leans against the counter. Angus realizes something.

“Lucretia, is your last name Maryam?”

Lucretia looks surprised for a moment. “Yes? How did you know?”

“Grandpa called you Doctor Maryam.” Angus laughs, tinny and quiet in the tentative atmosphere. “I, well, I always pictured you as a moon elf.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“You're not disappointing, _doctor_.” Angus puts his head on his arms. “I'm just disappointed in myself for not calling you doctor all this time. Where did you get your PHD?”

“I got a phd in library science on one of the worlds we visited. I put a stupid amount of time into that degree and all I got to use it for was the associated title.”

They share a laugh. She pours their tea, and sits down across from him. Her eyes are so warm.

“Lucretia?”

“Yes, Angus?”

“Can I stay with you?”

Her expression darkens. “Wouldn't you rather live with your parents?”

“Not… really. They're strangers.”

It takes Lucretia a moment to process that information. “I suppose… it makes sense to give you time to get familiar with them before we force you to share a space with them.” She sighs. “It's complicated, Angus. It's three in the morning. But I do believe your decision should drive this choice.”

“Yeah. Um. Thank you.”

They finish their tea in relative quiet.

Angus only gets a few hours of sleep, but the next morning when he joins the reconstruction efforts Lucretia gives him a cup of tea with a little bit of a smile on her face. Like they know something together. The tea is far too bitter, but it feels good anyway.

 

Barry sneaks out in the early morning, snatching his IPRE robe and then changing his mind, pulling on a plain brown cloak instead. He floats down off the base, wanders in the direction of Phandalin. By the time he reaches the spot, the sun is starting to peek over the trees.

He half expects to find his own eviscerated body lying in the dirt, just as fresh and terrifying as it was a decade ago. It's not there, of course.

Moss has grown back over the spot where he buried his child. The tree that stood over it was very young, but it has since died, torn up by its roots and overturned. Barry kneels down in the shade of the tree's root network, running his fingers over the moss.

He hits something sharp.

Barry lifts his hands. In a flood, he recalls tree identification lessons with a cheerful Merle, teaching him how to identify saplings so he can keep them out of his garden. There, growing in the center of the moss mound, just barely tall enough to get sun, is a baby spruce tree. A tiny, baby Norway spruce.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaAAaaaaahhh ok this piece is finally done.  
> it's not as good as I was hoping I could make it but it's done. i have the damn idea out of my head and down in text format and im so thankful. 
> 
> Thanks to all of the folks who have stuck with me through the sludgey canon-recounts and the angst. Hopefully, if I ever write a sequel to this (still up in the air. I have an idea but who knows.) it will be almost 100% pure postgame fluff. 
> 
> I was invited about a month ago to work on a bigger project with Capitola and a friend of hers who is anonymous here on ao3, so that's where my energy has been going lately -- besides moving, job hunting, and, if we go back far enough, finals week. Hopefully we can get more chapters of that out pretty soon, though.   
> Thanks again!  
> \--tuna

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments fuel my yellin'


End file.
